March 8, 2007

Cowley men have season end with 71-69 loss

In a game that summed up the Cowley College men’s basketball season,  the Tigers fought until the very end but came up just short as they had their season come to an end with a 71-69 loss in the first-round of the Region VI Tournament played Wednesday in Garden City.

Trailing the entire first half, Cowley closed the half on a 10-1 run to tie the game at 42-42. Garden City regained the lead early in the second half and looked as if they would pull away as they led 65-56 with four minutes remaining.

However, led by sophomore point guard James Loe, Cowley again used a 10-1 run to tie the game at 66-66 with two minutes left to play.

Julian Allen, the Jayhawk West Player of the Year, put Garden City back on top 69-66 with a three-pointer with 1:04 remaining. Loe answered by knocking down his fifth three-pointer of the game to tie the score at 69-69 with 50 seconds left.

The Broncbusters’ Tyrone Flemming regained the lead for Garden City as his only basket of the game gave his team a 71-69 lead with 35 seconds left. Loe would miss a pair of three-point attempts sandwiched around a miss of a one-and-one free-throw opportunity by Garden City’s Yima Chia-Kur.

Following Loe’s missed three-point attempt with 4.5 seconds left, Cowley was forced to foul Reggie Davis, who missed the front end of the one-and-one. Garden City smartly fouled the Tigers on the rebound, forcing Cowley to inbound the ball from under the basket with 2.8 seconds left.

The Tigers got the ball in to Loe, whose three-point attempt from half court hit off the side of the rim as the buzzer sounded.

After falling behind early, Cowley did a good job of giving themselves an opportunity to win the game.

“We were really proud of the guys, there were several opportunities in the first half for us to get blown out,” Cowley assistant coach Brandon Lesovsky said. “When it got tough late they just made one more play than we did.”

Loe led Cowley with 23 points in the defeat, while sophomore Matt Muncy scored all 12 of his points on four second half three-pointers.

“James provided a spark for us off the bench and Matt hit some big shots for us in the second half,” Lesovsky said.

Playing his final game as a Tiger, Santwon Latunde finished with 11 points and six rebounds. Freshman Sanijay Watts, the team’s leading scorer on the season, finished with nine points and six rebounds.

Cowley ends the season almost identical to the way they did the 2005-06 season as they finish with a record of 16-15 overall and 10-8 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division.

Garden City, which had to forfeit its first semester games, are now 10-20 overall. Chia-Kur led the Broncbusters with 17 points, while Allen added 15. Garden City, the seventh seed in the tournament, will play second-seeded Coffeyville at 7 p.m. Sunday in the second-round of the Region VI Tournament.

Cowley will say goodbye to six sophomores. The sophomores are, Joe Harvey, Eric Hammond, Loe, Muncy, Latunde and Tyler Blackburn.

“We want to thank them for their hard work and effort they put in over the past couple of years,” Lesovsky said. “They are good kids, we wish them luck in the future.”

Box score:
Cowley (69): Sanijay Watts 4-8 1-1 9, Matt Muncy 4-9 0-0 12, Ludovic Dovonou 0-4 2-2 2, Joe Harvey 1-5 0-0 2, Eric Hammond 2-7 0-0 6, James Loe 9-14 0-0 23, Nikola Grbicic 1-2 2-2 4, Santwon Latunde 4-10 3-4 11. Totals: 25-59 8-9 69.

Garden City (71): Jeremy Baker 2-3 2-2 6, Sammie Fisher 1-2 0-0 3, Dale Saunders 5-11 2-5 13, Yima Chia-Kur 7-13 2-5 17, Julian Allen 6-14 1-3 15, Tyrone Fleming 1-4 4-4 6, Jon Trilli 3-3 0-0 8, Derrick Tarvin 1-1 0-0 3, Reggie Davis 0-0 0-1 0, Nic White 0-2 0-0 0. Totals: 26-53 11-20 71.

Three-pointers: Cowley 11-28 (Muncy 4-7, Dovonou 0-1, Harvey 0-4, Hammond 2-7, Loe 5-9), Garden City 8-19 (Fisher 1-2, Saunders 1-4, Chia-Kur 1-3, Allen 2-6, Fleming 0-1, Trilli 2-2, Tarvin 1-1). Rebounds: Cowley 28 (Watts, Latunde 6), Garden City 28 (Chia-Kur 7). Assists: Cowley 9 (Loe, Latunde 3), Garden City 8 (Baker, Allen). Turnovers: Cowley 14, Garden City 13. Total fouls: Cowley 18, Garden City 14. Fouled out: none. Technicals: none.