Cowley men blast Neosho 100-60, capture Jayhawk East title

Taking care of business with a convincing 100-60 win at Neosho County on Saturday, the No. 9-ranked Cowley College men’s basketball team captured its first outright conference title since the 1990-91 season.

“Back when the guys first signed here they wanted to try to do this for the people here and for the team,” Cowley head coach Steve Eck said. “The guys worked hard for it and have got good support from the administration, the school, and the town.”

The Tigers shared the conference title in the 1991-92, 1992-93, and 1999-2000 seasons. The conference title breaks Coffeyville’s string of seven consecutive Jayhawk East championships.

The victory was the Tigers’ 11th in a row and improved Cowley’s record to 28-2 overall and 17-1 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division. Cowley earned the No. 1-seed in the Region VI Tournament and will host Butler Community College Wednesday at 7 p.m.

Cowley’s 28 wins are one shy of the school-record set back in the 1952-53 season. That year’s team finished as the national runner-up.

On Saturday, Cowley led 44-28 at the end of the first half. The Tigers busted the game open in the final 20 minutes of play as they shot a blistering 76.7 percent from the floor. Cowley out-shot Neosho 61.4 percent to 31 percent for the game.

“Neosho came out with emotion with it being their sophomore night, but we finally had our intensity kick in and we wore them down in the second half,” Eck said.

Sophomore Montrell McDonald finished with 21 points and a season-high 11 assists. He also added six rebounds and five blocked shots.

“When Montrell is not in foul trouble he does a lot of things for us,” Eck said.

Chris Rhymes led all scorers with 24 points, while Jack Crowder came off the bench to pour in 17 points. Preston Brown and Eric McKinney chipped in with 12 and 11 points, respectively.

Damayrius Adside led the Panthers with 14 points and eight rebounds in the defeat. Neosho County (14-16 overall, 9-9 conference) finished sixth in the Jayhawk East.

Cowley will now turn its focus to No. 16-seed Butler. The Tigers defeated the Grizzlies 81-72 in the Jayhawk Shootout. In that game, Cowley led 42-39 at the end of the first half and clinged to a four-point lead with 12 minutes remaining. However, the Tigers increased its lead to 15 points before holding on for the nine-point win.

Butler finished the regular season with a record of 9-20 overall and 4-12 in the Jayhawk West.

“Butler’s record is deceiving,” Eck said. “They are a solid team and are going to play hard.”

Box score:
Cowley (100): Preston Brown 5-7 2-2 12, Reggie Cook 0-5 0-0 0, Montrell McDonald 9-14 1-2 21, Kyle Hammerschmidt 0-0 0-0 0, Chris Rhymes 10-16 2-2 24, Mike Atwater 0-1 0-0 0, Marcus Butler 4-8 0-0 8, Jack Crowder 7-9 3-4 17, Zach Miller 3-3 1-1 7, Eric McKinney 5-7 1-2 11. Totals: 43-70 10-13 100.

Neosho (60): Terrell Northington 6-13 2-2 15, J.J. Pitts 0-3 0-0 0, Nick Bonci 2-5 0-0 6, Mark May 1-4 0-0 2, Demetrius Martin 0-2 0-0 0, Dan Richardson 0-0 0-0 0, Adrian Sims 3-11 0-0 8, Talan Shinn 1-1 0-0 3, Damayrius Adside 4-11 3-4 14, Mark Gomilla 1-6 2-2 4, Alex Hughes 1-3 0-0 2, Delray Mills 3-12 0-0 6. Totals: 22-71 7-8 60.

Three-pointers: Cowley 4-10 (Butler 0-1, Brown 0-1, Cook 0-1, McDonald 2-3, Rhymes 2-3, McKinney 0-1), Neosho 9-20 (Northington 1-2, Pitts 0-2, Sims 2-5, Shinn 1-1, Adside 3-5, Gomilla 0-1, Bonci 2-3, Martin 0-1). Rebounds: Cowley 41 (Crowder 7), Neosho 37 (Adside 8). Assists: Cowley 28 (McDonald 11), Neosho 13 (Northington 4). Turnovers: Cowley 13, Neosho 19. Total fouls: Cowley 13, Neosho 18. Fouled out: none. Technicals: Mills.