Don’t underestimate the power of revenge.
To open Jayhawk Eastern Division play in January, Allen County Community College’s Red Devils had three straight road games. They began the conference with a 78-60 loss at Kansas City, Kan., Community College.
“We watched the film from that game. I thought we were the better team going into that game but we didn’t play like it and KCK handed us an embarrassing loss,” said Anwar Perry, ACCC men’s head coach. “So there was a revenge factor in this game tonight.”
Opening the second half of conference play Saturday, the Blue Devils came to Allen County. At the end of a back-and-forth contest, the Red Devils posted a 70-66 victory to improve to 3-7 in conference action and 9-13 overall.
Defense was a big factor also in the final four minutes of the game. Terrell Shears got a tip-in at the 3:40 mark to tie the game at 62-62. Allen County came away with the basketball at the defensive end and Seth Walden put the Red Devils up for good on a fastbreak layup.
Shears downed two free throws with 2:19 left making it a 66-62 lead. In a wild span of action, the Red Devils controlled the basketball and the clock but missed on a dunk attempt and turned the ball over with less than a minute left in the game.
Kansas City couldn’t convert either as Drelan Tripplett claimed a defensive rebound with 43 seconds on the clock. The Blue Devils had to revert to fouling and called a timeout with 39.3 seconds left in the game.
Canon Fields hit the front end of a one-and-one for the Red Devils. Then Mylin Jordan sank two charities for the Blue Devils, making it a three-point game, 67-64. Fields went back to the line but missed with 24.9 seconds remaining.
Allen County applied full-court pressure and Fields forced Brandon Morris to fumble the basketball out of bounds at mid-court. Morris came up with a steal on the inbounds play and scored with 16 points.
Up by one and facing full-court, man-to-man defense, Allen County went up with an inbounds pass. Jeff Romeus was streaking down the court, got the pass, scored and was fouled. He completed the three-point play with 13.8 seconds on the clock.
Shears cleared his 10th rebound of the game for Allen County off a Blue Devil missed shot with seven seconds left to seal the win.
Shears led the Red Devils with another double-double, 15 points and 10 rebounds. Shears was 5 of 5 from the free-throw line. Terrence Williams added 10 points. Allen County got point production from nine players in Saturday’s win.
Allen County shot 42 percent, 25 of 59, from the field while Kansas City hit at a 40-percent clip (23 of 57). The Blue Devils cashed in on 18 of 26 free throw attempts and the Red Devils were 16 of 21.
“Twenty-one assists is good for us. This was our second straight win when we’ve had 21 assists,” Perry said. “We had different people step up at different times during the game to score, make a steal, get a rebound or something to turn it our way.”
Allen County started out slow, trailing 9-2 and played catch-up throughout the first half. Down by 10, 22-12, midway through the half, the Red Devils scored eight unanswered.
