Finishing games has been a problem for Allen County Community College’s Red Devils this season. There have been games when they had a lead and allowed teams to rally and win.
Not so Saturday in front of a homecoming crowd in a Jayhawk Eastern Division game. The Red Devils didn’t start well but the finish was spot on.
When Highland Community College’s Scotties made a final run at the Red Devils, they held their ground. Their 15-point lead had shrunk to six, 75-69 with just under three minutes to play.
Canon Fields led the Devils to an 89-76 win by hitting free throws late. He was 6 of 6 in one-and-one situations in the last five minutes. Allen County downed 12 of 14 in that critical final three-minute span.
“Our guys realized it takes all of us to win. They played with a lot of heart and effort as a team tonight,” said Anwar Perry, ACCC men’s head coach.
“Look — we had 21 assists. That’s unbelievable. That means we were playing unselfish basketball and finding the open man.”
Perry also pointed to rebounding. He said his team was embarrassed Wednesday night when Cowley County had 54 rebounds against it.
“We worked on doing a better job on the boards, boxing out. You saw that tonight,” he said.
Allen County outrebounded Highland 37 to 30 and that’s without its top rebounder playing in the game. Sophomore Terrell Shears was serving a one-game suspension for missing class.
“We had people step up to get the job done. Drelan (Tripplett), Terrence (Williams) and Thomas (Daniel) did a good job of clearing rebounds at both ends of the floor tonight,” Perry said.
Allen County found itself in a 14-3 hole in the first three minutes of the game.
A three-point play by Williams got the Red Devils going at the 16:47 mark. Seth Walden hit one of two free throws for ACCC and it was 14-7.
Baskets by Williams, Fields and Daniel closed the gap to four points, 17-13. But Highland pushed out with eight unanswered.
Six of those points came on back-to-back three-pointers by De’Andre Upchurch. Walden had Allen County’s response in a trey of his own.
That triggered a 9-2 run by the Red Devils.
