T-Birds trip up Reivers, 86-78

Four of five starters scored in double figures as the Cloud County Community College Thunderbirds capped off their regular season with an 86-78 non-conference win over Iowa Western Community College Friday night in Bryant Gymnasium
Sophomore guard Jay Lewis led the way for Cloud County with 25 points. He also handed out five assists.
Chad Vincent-Simon tossed in 15 points and pulled down seven rebounds for the T-Birds.
Iyen Enaruna finished with 14 points and six rebounds.
DJ Sims added 11 points and six rebounds.
Cloud County, which avenged an earlier loss to Iowa Western (16-14), finished up the regular season 9-20.
“First off, I want to say that the character our players have shown throughout the season is second to none, and I am really happy they earned this win tonight,” Cloud County coach Jordan Altman said, “I told them in the locker room post-game that we simply didn’t make the mistakes that would cost us a game tonight, but did enough to earn a victory. We didn’t have anybody go out and do anything special and take over the game, but we played as a team and had a near mistake-free five minutes which ended up being the difference in the game.”
The T-Birds will play at Barton Community College in the opening round of the Region VI Championships at 7:30 Wednesday night.
Barton is 22-8 and finished second in the Jayhawk Conference West Division.
The Cougars defeated Cloud County 74-67 in an earlier meeting this season.
The winner of the game will take on the winner of the game between Coffeyville Community College and Dodge City Community College in the quarterfinals at 3 p.m. Sunday at the United Wireless Center in Dodge City.
Cowley College and Colby Community College earned first round byes in the tournament.
In the other first round games, Hutchinson Community College hosts Allen County Community College; Butler Community College hosts Garden City Community College; Pratt Community College hosts Neosho County Community College and Independence Community College hosts Seward County Community College.
Getting out to a quick 6-2 lead, Iowa Western would lead Cloud County for nearly the entire first half.
The T-Birds would tie the game at 6-6 on a basket by Enaruna with 15:47 to play in the half.
Iowa Western used an 11-2 run to go on top 17-8.
The Reivers would lead by as many as 11 points, 31-20, when Josiah Strong hit a three-point shot with 5:59 on the clock.
Strong was four of six from three-point range in scoring 25 points.
Trailing 33-22, the T-Birds would score the final nine points of the first half to close the gap to 33-31 on a layup by Michael Ozomah with time running out.
Two free throws by Vincent-Simon 26 seconds into the second half tied the game at 33-33.
Iowa Western got a free throw by Strong and a three by Kaleb Thornton to take a 37-33 lead.
The Reivers would extend that advantage to six points, 44-38.
A basket by Sims and four straight points by Vincent-Simon would tie the game at 44-44.
The two teams would go back and forth over the next 10 minutes with neither leading by more than four points.
There were nine lead changes and three ties.
The game was knotted at 66-66 when Lewis made one of two free throws and then drilled a three-point shot to put the T-Birds on top to stay, 70-66.
Iowa Western would pull within a point on four occasions.
A jumper by Caleb Huffman, who scored 24 points for the Reivers, made it 76-75 with 3:16 to play.
Cloud County would outscore Iowa Western 10-8 the rest of the way.
The T-Birds hit 30 of 71 field goal attempts for 42 percent and 24 of 28 free throws for 86 percent.
Cloud County had a whopping 51-30 rebounding advantage and scored 17 second chance points to none for the Reivers.
Iowa Western used just seven players, and six scored.
Thornton joined Strong and Huffman in double figures with 13 points.