January 4, 2007                    

Tiger men can’t overcome early deficit

Playing at Labette County on Wednesday, the Cowley College men’s basketball team showed the rust of not having played in the last 28 days as they fell behind early and eventually lost 87-77.

The Tigers struggled to knock down shots for the majority of the first half as they trailed 27-7 after the first 12 minutes of play. Cowley closed the first half on a 7-0 run to cut the Cardinals’ lead to 39-25.

The Tigers then opened the second half on an 11-3 run, which was capped by a James Loe lay up off a steal by Matt Muncy. Loe’s lay in brought Cowley within six points (42-36) of Labette with 17:45 left to play.

However, the Cardinals answered with six straight points and did not allow Cowley to get any closer than within eight points the rest of the way. The loss drops the Tigers’ record to 6-7 overall and 0-1 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division. Labette improves to 7-5 overall and 1-0 in the Jayhawk East.

“We gave up a lot of open looks in the first half and did a lot of things to lose the game,” Cowley head coach Brian Jackson said. “We don’t have the type of offensive fire power to give someone a 20-point lead.”

Cowley played without its top two leading scorers and rebounders in Santwon Latunde (15.0 points, 9.8 rebounds) and Sanijay Watts (11.5 points, 5.0 rebounds).

Freshman post player Ludovic Dovonou finished with 14 points for the Tigers, while sophomore guard Eric Hammond added 13. Larry Cox also scored in double figures in the defeat.

Cowley will return to action Saturday when they host Kansas City at 7 p.m.

“It’s unfortunate to start off conference play with a loss, but we will have to get back in the gym and prepare for Saturday’s game with Kansas City,” Jackson said. “We have got to try and get a win.”