February 24, 2007
Seward County had their two game winning streak snapped on Wednesday at Cloud County 71-66, despite the Saints outscoring the T-Birds in the second-half (39-37). The Saints had troubles at the beginning shooting 36 percent in the opening period and hitting just 3-of-12 from long range.
Seward
County
threatened midway through the second-half taking a brief 48-47 lead with 12:14 remaining. Immediately after SCCC took the lead
Cloud
County
went on an 11-0 run to pick up their sixth straight conference win.
Nick Burns scored a team-high 16 points, along side high school teammate Bryson Hampton who tied a career-high with 14 points and nine rebounds. The Saints are continuing to battle for an upper division playoff seed, but their chances are dwindling being two games behind three teams (Pratt, Cloud County and Garden City) who are all 8-5 in conference play with three regular season games remaining.
Garden City was a team who looked like they would contend for the Jayhawk West Conference title after starting the conference schedule with eight wins out of their opening 10 games. The Broncbusters have struggled lately and enter Sunday after losing their last three games. GCCC lost at home against Pratt 90-86 in overtime and lost another heart-breaker in double overtime at
Barton
County
110-97. The Busters were idle on Wednesday after suffering a 72-55 loss at home last Monday against Cloud County C.C. in a make-up game from the previous week.
Regardless of their early conference success and current losing streak, it is obvious that Garden City has two of the most talented players in the conference in Julian Allen (19.8 ppg. and 5.4 rpg.) and Yima Chia-Kur (19.0 ppg. and 6.0 rpg.) who are both in the Top 5 in the Region VI in scoring.
Garden City knows how to win the close games as they are 4-1 in games decided by five points or less. The Broncbusters have impressive conference wins over Pratt,
Cloud
County
and
Dodge City
.
Seward
County
has won three of the last four meetings in this series. Since 2000-2001,
Seward
County
leads the head-to-head series 8-6. The Busters have a 4-2 lead at the
Perryman
Center
in Garden City over the last six seasons.
