There’s nothing like sweeping a home doubleheader in Jayhawk Eastern Division basketball action.
Allen County Community College’s Red Devil men posted their first conference victory of the season Saturday. The Red Devils finished an up-and-down game on the up side beating Labette Community College’s Cardinals 73-68.
Allen County’s women started the night off right in the ACCC gym. The Red Devils outlasted the Cardinal women 68-64.
The ACCC men improved to 1-5 in Jayhawk East play and 7-11 overall. Allen County’s women are 2-4 and 7-11.
Allen County’s teams travel to Arkansas City Wednesday to take on the Cowley County Community College teams. The Tiger teams are both 4-2 in the conference with the women at 13-5 overall and the men are 14-4.
Seth Walden only had five shots from the field in the game. He connected four times including a crucial tip-in for Allen County’s first basket of the second half.
“We had a pretty good first half. We shot the three-pointer well — 6 of 7 — in the first half but it started with our defense early. Our defense caused Labette problems and allowed us to have a good offensive start,” said Anwar Perry, ACCC men’s head coach.
The Red Devils pushed out to a 38-30 halftime lead over the Cardinals. Perry said the Red Devils came out sluggish and “basically had no heart or killer instinct.”
“We had six straight turnovers and Labette went on an 11-0 run taking a 41-38 lead,” Perry said. “It wasn’t until I brought Seth off the bench did we get our first basket of the second half. Seth later hit two big threes to get us rolling again.”
Walden finished with 11 points and downed three threes. Allen County hit 10 of 14 three-pointers in the game. The Red Devil men shot 59 percent, 26 of 44, from the field and hit 11 of 18 free throws.
Canon Fields had a strong contest with 25 points, 11 assists and two steals. Fields had two threes and went 7 of 9 at the free-throw line. Rickey Hollis hit three treys on his way to 12 points and made two steals.
Terrell Shears pulled down 14 of the team’s 26 rebounds. Allen County had 18 turnovers.
The Cardinals stayed in the game by cashing in on 22 of 31 free throw attempts. Dre Conner led Labette with 19 points and was 11 of 15 at the line. Wendell Lee chipped in 15 points and Vincent Cornu had 12 points.
THE ACCC WOMEN were behind 32-28 at halftime. They turned things around in the second half to outscore Labette 40-32 to get the victory.
