by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
A near flawless overtime carried Kansas City Kansas Community College to a 69-59 win at Hesston Saturday.
The Blue Devils scored on four of their first five possessions in the extra period and held the Larks scoreless for all but the final 24 seconds of the overtime.
The win evened the Blue Devils’ Jayhawk Conference record at 1-1 heading into a pair of home games this coming week. Fort Scott comes in for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff Wednesday and No. 2 ranked Highland follows Saturday at 4 p.m.
Daiyon Taylor, a 6-6 freshman from Detroit, was the catalyst in the win, forcing overtime with a late field goal and then scoring the first four points of the overtime.
Turning in his finest performance, Taylor finished with 22 points and hauled in 15 rebounds, both career bests.
The Blue Devils also got a standout rebounding effort from 6-2 freshman guard Calvin Slaughter, who had a career-high 12 rebounds as the Blue Devils dominated the rebounding 51-29.
Taylor started the overtime with two free throws and a basket for a 55-51 lead.
Arother Ratliff scored from close range and Kelyn Bolton made it 59-51 with a field goal and the Blue Devils opened the margin to 62-51 before Hesston finally scored with 24 seconds left, ending a streak of eight straight scoreless possessions.
“A great team win,” KCKCC coach Kelley Newton said. “Daiyon Taylor was outstanding with both his scoring and rebounding and it was good to see Calvin Slaughter rebounding so well from the guard position. Overall, I felt we were locked in the entire game.”
Leading 29-22 at halftime, KCKCC was in front 38-30 with 13 minutes to go only to be outscored 13-1 and trail 43-39.
A Kelyn Bolton field goal, two Malcolm Tate free throws and three charity tosses by Slaughter got KCKCC back in the lead 48-47 but it took a free throw and then a length of the floor driving layup by Taylor with 53 seconds left for a 51-51 deadlock.
Both teams missed chances to take the lead in the closing seconds but once in overtime it was all KCKCC.
The Blue Devils took just four shots in overtime, made three and then converted 12 of 18 free throws while the Larks were just 3-of-12 in the extra period. Guilty of just one turnover in overtime, the Blue Devils had just 12 total while forcing Hesston in 16 errors.
Taylor Turner added 10 points, Slaughter and Ratliff eight points each, Bolton seven and Cody Dortch five for KCKCC.
The Blue Devils took only 47 shots from the field, made 19 for 40.4 percent while limiting the Larks to just 19-of-63 attempts (30.2 percent).
Ten of Hesston’s 19 field goals were 3-pointers as the Larks put up 36 attempts. Cal Hartley, the Jayhawk’s leading scorer, led all scorers with 28 points but needed 16 shots for six 3-pointers.
In other Jayhawk play Saturday, No. 2 ranked Highland escaped Labette 72-70 at home while No. 10 ranked Johnson County was winning at Fort Scott 66-55. Highland plays at JCCC Monday in a makeup of Wednesday’s game that was snowed out.