T-Birds drop conference game to Pirates

A late scratch by leading scorer and rebounder Le’Yanna McGinnis because of an ankle injury had the Cloud County Community College Thunderbirds scrambling a bit going into its home game against Independence Community College Wednesday night.
Struggling to adapt to the lineup change early on, the T-Birds would fall behind 13-2 to start the game.
With freshman guard Rori Cox leading the way, Cloud County would battle its way back and tie the game at 44-44 in the fourth quarter.
Trailing just 51-49, the T-Birds would go better than five minutes without scoring as Independence tossed in nine straight points to go up 58-49.
Cloud County was unable to overcome that stretch, and fell 64-56 to the Pirates in a Jayhawk Conference East Division matchup.
“It has an impact, not having our leading scorer and leading rebounder. She is a lot of the focus of what we do offensively,” Cloud County coach Brett Erkenbrack said. “It stunned us certainly to start the ball game and we got ourselves in that little hole there. And then we had to kind of adjust how we had to play, and I thought we did a nice job of getting ourselves back in the game.”
Cloud County, now 5-6 overall and 4-6 in conference play, was one of six from the field and had three turnovers in falling behind by 11 points to start the game.
The T-Birds would chip away at the Independence lead, and trailed 30-25 at halftime.
Cloud County was down 40-36 in the third quarter when Cox scored four straight points to tie things up at 40-40 with 1:49 remaining in the third quarter.
Cox, after scoring 22 points in a win over Garden City Community College on Monday night, pumped in 24 points against the Pirates. She also had nine rebounds and four steals.
“We relied heavily on Rori Cox, and she pretty much kept us in it,” Erkenbrack said.
The two teams traded baskets and Independence got two free throws by Rapuluchi Favor Ayod to take a 44-42 lead into the final period.
Two free throws by Cox early in the fourth quarter again pulled the T-Birds even at 44-44.
The Pirates, 10-4 overall and 8-4 in the Jayhawk East, used a 7-2 spurt to go up 51-46.
Alyssa Castilleja hit a three-point shot, and Cloud County trailed just 51-49 with 7:19 to play in the game.
The T-Birds would then go 5:09 without scoring.
Independence tossed in nine points during that stretch, and led 58-49 when Mira Khan hit a three with 2:40 to play.
Cloud County got two free throws by Derin Akdeniz, a steal, and a basket by Kennedy Becker to close the gap to 58-53.
Scoring three straight points, the Pirates went up 61-53.
Cox completed a three-point play with 42 seconds left to make it a five point game again, 61-56.
Independence hit three of four free throws in the final 24 seconds to lock up the win.
“We did some good things at times. We had to adjust some things without her (McGinnis) and I think in some ways, even though we lost, there may have been some benefit out of that ball game for us in the long run,” Erkenbrack said.
Cox was the only Cloud County player to score in double figures.
Ayod led the Pirates with 17 points. Maisa Marcal scored 15 and Delani Harris added 10.
Cloud County will play a third game this week at Neosho Community College on Saturday  afternoon.