Lady Tigers ride big first half to fourth straight win

Closing out the home portion of its schedule, the Cowley College women's basketball team picked up its fourth straight win with a 75-48 demolishing of Cloud County Wednesday inside W.S. Scott Auditorium.

The victory improves Cowley's record to 16-13 overall and 10-13 in the Jayhawk Conference. The Lady Tigers moved in front of Cloud (13-14 overall, 9-13 Jayhawk Conference) in the conference standings and are now in ninth place, one-half game behind three teams in a tie for sixth place. Cowley must finish among the top eight teams in the conference to host a first-round playoff game.

On Wednesday, Cowley led 18-10 after one-quarter of play. The Lady Tigers would score the first 12 points of the second quarter and held Cloud County to 1-of-16 shooting in the period to open a commanding 40-14 halftime lead.

The Lady Tigers' lead would grow to 40 points (65-25) at the end of the third quarter.

With the game comfortably in hand, Cowley head coach Todd Clark could rest his starters most of the fourth quarter as the Tigers cruised to the 27-point win.

Cowley forced Cloud into 29 turnovers and held the Lady T-Birds to 31.3 percent shooting from the floor. The Lady Tigers also had nine players score in the victory as they improved to 12-5 at home.

"This was a good win," Clark said. "At Cloud, we did not stick our press long enough, but we did better with that tonight."

Lady Tiger freshman Hattie Pyle led all scorers with 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the floor and 5-of-6 shooting from the foul line while grabbing a team-high nine rebounds. Fellow freshman Destiny Yates also played well, finishing with 10 points, eight steals, and four assists.

"Destiny is a really heady player, and we are glad to have her at Cowley," Clark said.

Playing what could be their final home game, sophomores Anna Przyszlak and Ndack Mbengue added 16 and 10 points apiece. Przyszlak averages 14.5 points and 9.4 rebounds per game, while Mbengue averages 12.4 points and 10.4 boards per contest.

"They both have good careers ahead of them and have improved tremendously since they got here," Clark said. "Even more important is they are great people to be around."

Maimouna Sissoko led Cloud with 16 points and 18 rebounds in the defeat.

Cowley will have some time off before playing its regular season finale at Butler on Wednesday, March 6 at 5:30 p.m. The Lady Tigers defeated Butler 71-69 on January 21 in Ark City. The Grizzlies (21-7 overall and 15-7 in the Jayhawk Conference) are led by Freddie Wallace, who averages 19.3 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.

"Butler is a tough matchup for us," Clark said. "We will need to play well and be able to score the basketball."

Box score:

Cloud (48): Destiny Smith 3-9 1-2 7, Darcy Lierz 0-1 0-0 0, Bailey Burns 4-14 1-5 11, Maimouna Sissoko 7-16 2-2 16, Josephine Igherighe 5-16 1-2 11, Cadence Nondorf 0-0 0-0 0, Sarah Lawless 1-7 1-2 3, Kirya Mack 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 20-64 6-13 48.

Cowley (75): Destiny Yates 5-11 0-0 10, Ndack Mbengue 4-11 2-2 10, Anna Przyszlak 7-15 2-3 16, Hattie Pyle 6-9 5-6 17, Jaiden Smith 3-4 3-3 9, Zuzanna Komor 1-1 0-0 2, Wiktoria Podrouzek 0-1 1-2 1, Josephine Vourliotis 2-5 0-0 6, Lily Rhomberg 0-0 0-0 0, Georgia Knight 1-2 2-3 4. Totals: 29-63 15-19 75.

Three-pointers: Cloud 2-13 (Burns 2-5, Smith 0-5, Lierz 0-1, Sissoko 0-1, Lawless 0-1), Cowley 2-17 (Vourliotis 2-5, Przyszlak 0-3, Smith 0-3, Yates 0-3, Mbengue 0-1, Podrouzek 0-1, Knight 0-1). Rebounds: Cloud 44 (Sissoko 18), Cowley 34 (Pyle 9). Assists: Cloud 12 (Burns 5), Cowley 9 (Yates 4). Turnovers: Cloud 29, Cowley 19. Total fouls: Cloud 14, Cowley 14. Fouled out: none. Technicals: none.