by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
A wild shot that banked in cost Kansas City Kansas Community College’s Lady Blue Devils a chance at one of the Jayhawk Conference’s biggest upsets of the season.
Tied 64-64 at No. 15 ranked Labette Saturday, Labette’s Shameka Tubbs threw up a contested shot from the free throw line that banked in with 23 seconds remaining for a 66-64 lead and the Lady Cardinals stole the ensuing in-bounds pass that sealed a 69-64 win.
“A great opportunity to get a much-needed victory over a ranked opponent,” KCKCC coach Joe McKinstry said. “We had two chances in the final minute to tie or take the lead and we just didn’t get it done.”
The loss left the Blue Devils in fourth place at 5-6 in Region VI play and in jeopardy of missing out on a home game when regional playoffs begin Saturday. KCKCC is the host of league-leading and No. 3 ranked Johnson County (10-1) Wednesday while Fort Scott (4-7) closes at Brown Mackie (1-10) with a chance to pull even with KCKCC. Labette, meanwhile, stays tied with Highland for second place at 9-2 with those two teams colliding at Labette Wednesday.
Beaten 77-67 at home earlier, the Blue Devils charged to a 22-16 first quarter lead and led 36-32 at halftime on 43.8 percent shooting. But the Blue Devils could net just 8-of-27 second half shots in a game that was tied five times and had three lead changes. However, the Blue Devils did not score from the field in the final four minutes although Labette never led by more than four points in the final quarter until the final seconds.
“Their zone defense made us look flat,” Labette coach Mitch Rolls told the Parsons Sun. “We had some matchup problems. They don’t have a true post and we had our posts guarding hybrid forwards and we didn’t do a good job of running our zone breakers.”
KCKCC’s Brie Tauai led all scorers with 24 points on 10-of-19 shooting while Brooklyn Wagler added 16, Kayla Horn 9 and Millie Shade 8. Wagler also had seven rebounds and four assists for the Blue Devils, who went with just seven active players. Outrebounded 42-33 by the taller Cardinals, the Blue Devils did force 22 Labette turnovers although guilty of 18 of their own. Just 5-of-26 from 3-point (.192), the Blue Devils shot 37.3 percent overall compared to .467 for Labette.
“Many of the areas we struggled today (shooting, rebounding, execution) are things we work on constantly,” McKinstry said. “When the opportunity presents itself, the bottom line is implementing what you’ve practiced and we seem to struggle with that aspect of the game.”
KCKCC athletes with 3.0 grade point averages or better will be honored at Academic Success Night during Wednesday’s doubleheader with JCCC. The game will also be the last home contest for sophomores Brooklyn Wagler, Brie Tauai, Millie Shade, Kayla Horn, Aeriel Holiday, Kylia Jarrett, Whitney Hazlett and student assistant Brooklyn Bockover.