Challenging the 17th-ranked Independence Community College Lady Pirates, Allen County Community College’s Red Devils came close to pulling off the upset at home Saturday night.
“We had it tied with a minute left in the game but just couldn’t score down the stretch,” said Mark James, ACCC women’s head coach. “We were up by three points with around two minutes remaining. We took a three-point shot that just didn’t fall.”
James said if that shot fell, the Red Devils could have been celebrating another win at home. But it didn’t and Independence got out of the ACCC gym with a 60-56 victory.
“We battled them for 40 minutes. Our girls played hard but it was a physical game — and the officials called it that way — and that was not to our advantage. At the end we had a little mental breakdown on defense and they hit a three to go up on top, we had a couple of empty trips offensively and that was it,” James said.
The loss broke a four-game winning streak by the ACCC women. Allen County is 6-8 in Jayhawk Eastern Division play and 11-15 overall. The Red Devils currently sit in the third spot in the Region VI, Division I East at 6-6.
“We know we can’t win a conference title so we’ve been focused on positioning ourselves for one of the four home region playoff games. We take one game at a time and if we can get one more win, we could wrap up a home playoff game,” James said.
So the Red Devils focus on Wednesday’s contest against Labette Community College’s Cardinals in Parsons.
The last time Allen County and Independence played the Lady Pirates won 66-42 on their home court. Only two teams in Jayhawk East play — Johnson County and Highland, which are both ranked in NJCAA Division II — have beaten Independence. The Lady Pirates (11-3, 21-4) remain unbeatened in Region VI, Division I East play.
Independence led Allen County 31-28 at halftime. The Lady Pirates outscored the Red Devils 29-28 in the second 20 minutes.
Allen County shot 32 percent, 18 of 57, from the field and went 12 of 20 at the free-throw line. Independence only hit on a 33-percent clip (23 of 70) from the field and cashed in on 12 of 17 free throw attempts.
Miracle Davis led Allen County with 14 points, seven rebounds and four assists. Brittney Redmond, who hit three of ACCC’s eight three-pointers in the game, had 12 points and Jamie Peel added 11.
Rackell Goldson, ACCC’s leading scorer, only had three points in the game. James said Goldson missed about 15 minutes of the first half after being hit in the face, resulting in a nose bleed. She returned in the second half and cleared nine rebounds. Hannah Blackwell pulled down seven rebounds and made three steals.
Independence got 17 points from Courtney Waldner and 16 from Diara Moore. Both were perfect (5-5, 6-6) from the free-throw line. Dominique Mosley added 12 points.
Allen County (28-28—56) (FG/3-pt): Jones 1/1-0-1-5, Stithem 0/1-0-0-3, Davis 4-6-3-14, Morton 0-0-2-0, Flanigan 0-0-1-0, Redmond 0/3-3-2-12, Peel 2/2-1-0-11, Goldson 0/1-0-1-3, Blackwell 3-2-4-8. TOTALS: 10/8-12-14-55.
Independence (31-29—60) (FG/3-pt): Curtis 1-0-4-2, Graves 0-0-2-0, Moore 2/2-6-2-16, Thomas 3-1-0-7, Peterson 0-0-1-0, Waldner 6-5-3-17, Anderson 3-0-5-6, Mosley 6-0-0-12, Riabencheko 0-0-1-0. TOTALS: 21/2-12-18-60.
Red Devil women push Lady Pirates to the end
