ACCC men use defense to fuel win over Pirates

Efficient and effective were Allen County Community College’s Red Devils Saturday night on their home basketball court.
Shooting 72 percent in the second half, the Red Devils handed Jayhawk Eastern Division’s second-place Independence Community College’s Pirates an 83-69 loss.
That means the Red Devils have won six straight games at home and four of their last five overall. It also halts a six-game winning streak by the Pirates.
“We shot over 70 percent in the second half but it all came down to our defense. We stuck to our plan of packing it in inside and making them beat us from the outside just like we did against Neosho County,” said Anwar Perry, Red Devil head coach.
Perry said Independence has a lot of “bigs” to use inside and Allen County was caught in foul trouble and didn’t have one of its bigger players available because of a suspension.
“We had to go small. Drelan (Tripplett) and Terrell (Shears) were in foul trouble. Drelan fouled out late when we were up 61-57. Terrell was sitting on the bench with four fouls,” Perry said. “It stayed there for a long time then they scored three points. I had to rotate Terrell in and out to help us offensively.”
The Pirates didn’t get any closer than 61-60 down the stretch. Shears, who finished with four fouls, paced the Red Devils with yet another double-double. Shears tossed in 22 points and pulled down 12 rebounds.
Allen County trailed 43-40 to Independence at halftime.
Perry said Allen County’s ability to switch up defensively from zone to man-to-man kept the Pirates in check in the second half. The Red Devils gave up just 26 points in the second 20-minute span.
Terrence Williams put in 20 points for the Red Devils and Canon Fields , who was 7 of 9 at the free-throw line, ended up with 19 points. Rickey Hollis sank 6 of 7 free throws to reach 10 points.
Allen County shot 62.5 percent, 30 of 48, from the field for the game. The Red Devils knocked down 21 of 29 free throw attempts. Independence shot 42 percent, 23 of 55, from the field, which included eight threes. The Pirates downed 15 of 24 charity tosses.
Fields handed out seven assists and made four steals. Seth Walden had three steals.
“Terrence played a great game, especially mixing it up inside against the bigger Independence players,” Perry said.
Tony Criswell scored 18 points for Independence. Bruce Adams, who had three threes, chipped in with 14 points.
Allen County improved to 6-8 in Jayhawk East play and 12-14 overall. The Red Devils are in a four-way tie with Kansas City, Kan., Johnson County and Labette — Wednesday’s opponent on the road.
During Saturday’s game, Perry was assessed a technical foul in the first half and Independence’s head coach Patrick Nee drew two technicals and was ejected from the game in the second half.
“We have four games left and two are on the road. We haven’t played very well on the road this year and we need to find a way to play better. We need to start Wednesday at Labette,” Perry said.
Allen County (40-43—83) (FG/3-pt): Fields 6-7-2-19, Hollis 2-6-1-10, Williams 7/1-3-4-20, Walden 0/1-0-1-3, Shears 9-4-4-22, Parker 3-1-1-7, Tripplett 1-0-5-2. TOTALS: 28/2-21-18-83.
Independence (43-26—69) (FG/3-pt): Criswell 4/1-7-4-18, White 2-5-3-9, Goodwin 3-1-1-7, Adams 2/3-1-3-14, Huffman 2-0-2-4, Botts 0-0-3-0, Dowing 0-0-2-0, Brown 0/1-0-1-3, Givens 1/2-0-1-8, Hooks 1/1-1-0-6. TOTALS: 15/8-15-22-69.