January 16, 2007                    

Cowley stumbles on the road, loses at Fort Scott 77-58

Leading by one-point (38-37) at halftime of its game at Fort Scott on Monday, the Cowley College men’s basketball team had things fall apart in the second half as the Greyhounds rallied for a 77-58 win.

Cowley, which announced it will play the remainder of the season without leading scorer and rebounder, Santwon Latunde, along with freshmen Damen Harris and Tommy Williams, who were dismissed from the team, was outscored 40-20 over the game’s final 20 minutes of play.

The Tigers were called for 13 more fouls than the Greyhounds as Fort Scott outscored Cowley 25-6 from the free-throw line. Bateko Francisco and Kyle Cooper led Fort Scott with 28 and 20 points, respectively. The Greyhounds are now 11-5 overall and 3-1 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division, while the loss drops Cowley’s record to 8-8 overall and 2-2 in the Jayhawk East.

“We made some plays in the first half to keep us in the game, but we have a tendency in the second half of getting away from the things we need to do, and let the score go from down two (points) to down 15 (points),” Cowley head coach Brian Jackson said. “We are not the type of team that will be able to consistently battle back from that big of a hole.”

Freshman Sanijay Watts led Cowley with 14 points, while sophomores James Loe and Matt Muncy added 13 and 10 points, respectively.

The Tigers will be back in action Wednesday when they host Independence at 7 p.m. Cowley is 5-1 at home.

“We need to continue to develop a sense of playing every possession and not relaxing,” Jackson said. “If we can do that we will win a lot of games. We are looking forward to getting back on the court and getting this bad taste out of our mouth. I expect us to bounce back from this.”

Box score:
Cowley (58): Matt Muncy 5-7 0-0 10, Joe Harvey 1-4 1-1 3, Eric Hammond 2-6 0-0 5, James Loe 5-9 0-0 13, Nikola Grbicic 1-2 3-4 5, Sanijay Watts 6-8 2-4 14, Larry Cox 4-8 0-0 8, Ludovic Dovonou 0-2 0-0 0. Totals: 24-46 6-9 58.

Fort Scott (77): Terrell Turner 3-10 0-0 6, Bateko Francisco 10-19 6-8 28, Chris Clausen 0-1 2-2 2, AJ Rhea 1-1 3-7 5, Kolby Hopkins 0-0 1-2 1, Arsenio Williams 2-5 3-8 7, D’Mario Newton 2-3 4-6 8, Kyle Cooper 5-6 6-6 20. Totals: 23-45 25-39 77.