CHANUTE — According to the scoreboard, it took exactly 78 seconds of game clock to see the Allen Community College women’s hopes for victory go up in smoke Wednesday.
It just felt like forever.
The Red Devils, who held the lead nearly all the way against their rivals from Neosho County, saw a five-point lead turn into an eight-point deficit, thanks to a cacophony of turnovers and opportunistic shooting by the host Panthers.
The resulting 91-84 defeat drops Allen to 13-3 overall and 1-1 in Jayhawk Conference play, and spoiled what had, up until then, been a brilliant evening of hoops for the Red Devil squad.
Allen led by 17 late in the third quarter, but a slight lapse led to a wide opening for Neosho to seize momentum.
“The fourth quarter, we just didn’t play,” Red Devil head coach Leslie Crane said. “We played well up until then. But in the fourth quarter, we backed off.”
Allen led, 67-50, with under a minute left in the third period before the Panthers rattled off a 16-2 run over the span of 4½ minutes to pull within three.
But the Red Devils responded. Khassidy Warr scored inside, Noa Muranaka hit a 3-pointer before Warr got inside for another layup to make it 76-70. A pair of free throws from Abigail Alvarez with 2:57 left pushed the Red Devils up by 8 with under 3 minutes remaining.
Neosho was within three when Mafalda Chambel hit two more charities to make it 80-75 with 1:59 showing.
Then disaster struck.
Neohso’s Chesleigh Apala pulled in an offensive rebound and was fouled with 1:38 left. Her free throws cut the deficit to three.
The Panther press forced a bad inbounds pass for a turnover. The Panthers’ Jiyani Thompson’s wide open 3-pointer knotted the score at 80 apiece seconds later.
Another off-target inbound pass gave the ball right back to Neosho, which led to Jahnya Brown’s layup to push NCCC ahead, 82-80 — its first lead since the opening seconds of the game.
The Red Devils couldn’t convert on their end of the court. Thompson hit 1 of 2 charities to make it 83-80 for Neosho.
Allen’s horrible, no good, very bad stretch continued. Neosho’s Cayanna Stanley stole an outlet pass for an easy layup to put Allen in arrears, 85-80. Then, an offensive foul negated Sarang West’s putback on Allen’s next possession. The Red Devils were whistled for a technical foul as Crane, et al, howled in protest from the bench.
