Thunderbirds advance with 71-63 victory over Tigers

It was a next man up situation for the Cloud County Community College Thunderbirds, and Moaz Mohamed was that man.
Heading into the opening round game of the Region VI Men’s Basketball Tournament at home against Cowley College, the already short-handed T-Birds had freshman forward Malang Athian, a starter who averages 9.5 points and 3.7 rebounds per game, suffer an ankle injury in practice.
With Athian unavailable, and freshman starter Cheikh Sow already out with an injury, Mohamed, who had scored just 23 points in 13  appearances during the regular season, came off the bench and hit seven of nine three-point attempts on his way to scoring a team-high 21 points in sparking Cloud County to a 71-63 victory over Cowley Saturday afternoon in Bryant Gymnasium.
“We had some guys definitely step up. Did we expect Moaz Mohamed to make seven threes? Coming into the game he had been playing really well. In practice he had been absolutely locked in. He had a really good game against Colby and knowing that Cowley was going to come out in a zone, I felt like that was something he would play well against,” Cloud County coach Devin Kastrup said. “Did I expect him to hit seven, no. Knowing how locked in he is I thought he might hit two, and that would have been a big boost. So the fact he was able to come in and hit seven it really changed the environment and the energy in the gym. It was awesome.”
Eighth-seeded Cloud County, now 16-15 after avenging a pair of regular season losses to Cowley, including a 69-56 setback one week earlier, advances to the tournament quarterfinals and will play at top-seeded Dodge City Community College at 7:30 Tuesday night.
Dodge City (22-8) received a bye in the first round.
In the other first-round games on Saturday, 12th-seeded Independence Community College ousted fifth-seeded Garden City Community College, 82-78; sixth-seeded Hutchinson Community College knocked off Northwest Kansas Technical College, 102-79; and seventh-seeded Pratt Community College edged Seward County Community College, 59-58.
Second-seeded Coffeyville Community College (23-7) will host Pratt (17-13) in the quarterfinals; third-seeded Barton Community College (22-8) will host Hutchinson (20-11) and third-seeded Butler Community College (22-8) will host Independence (10-21).
Three of Mohamed’s threes came during a 21-2 Cloud County run in the second half that turned a 40-35 deficit into a 56-42 lead it would not relinquish.
Cowley, which finished its season 16-15, led the game 38-35 at halftime, and made it 40-35 when Jeff Nwankwo scored 1:04 into the second half.
The Tigers then went 6:41 without scoring. They missed seven consecutive field goal attempts and committed two turnovers.
Mohamed, who had scored 12 of his 23 points this season in the final game of the regular season against Colby Community College, connected on a pair of threes and five T-Birds scored during an 18-0 surge that gave them a 53-40 advantage.
“We got stops. I felt like they missed a couple of shots, and we made a couple,” Kastrup said of the Cloud County run. “We made some clutch shots and we got going a little bit. It didn’t feel like an 18-0 run, it almost felt like two 9-0 runs, a couple of small spurts that just happened back to back and we were just able to continuously get stops during that period.”
Nwankwo ended the scoring drought for Cowley by scoring inside with 12:15 remaining in the game, but Mohamed connected on another three to make it 56-42.
Cowley then scored the next five points to trim the deficit to 56-47.
Cloud County pushed the lead back to 12 points, 66-54.
Consecutive three-point shots by Damare Smith and a bucket by Xavier Washington pulled the Tigers within four points, 66-62, with 2:16 to play.
Cowley had two opportunities to draw even closer, but had a turnover and a missed shot.
Scoreless for nearly four minutes, Cloud County, which had made just 10 of its first 21 free throw attempts in the game, connected on five of six in the final 40 seconds to lock up the win.
“We knew they would make a run,” Kastrup said. “They made their run and we were able to kind of shut it down at the end.”
Corey Sawyer scored 19 points for Cloud County.
Justin Graham finished with 11 points, nine rebounds and five assists.
Ja’Ron Briggs Jr. had 12 rebounds to go with seven points.
Mekhi Cameron led Cowley with 20 points. Washington scored 14 and Nwankwo chipped in 13.
Cloud County led by as many as five points in the first half, and Cowley was up by as many as six.
A three by Mohamed pulled the T-Birds within a point, 36-35, late in the half.
Cameron hit from 19 feet in the final seconds, and the Tigers were up 38-35.
Cowley scored the first two points of the second half, before the big run by the T-Birds.
Cloud County split a pair of Jayhawk Conference games with Dodge City during the regular season, falling 82-80 at Dodge City and winning 76-66 at home.
“We beat them once at home and we played a close game there, so it is not a matchup that we are necessarily afraid of. However, I know they are a team that has a lot of firepower,” Kastrup said. “We are going to have to contest their three guards and rebound the ball, and if we do that we will give ourselves a chance.”