Burney’s 30 points are not enough as the Lady Tigers fall 69-65 at Cloud County

The loss evens Cowley's record at 10-10 as the Lady Tigers fall to 6-8 in the Jayhawk Conference. After starting 1-6 in the conference, Cloud County (9-11) improves its conference record to 5-10.

On Wednesday, Cowley trailed 25-15 at the end of the first quarter and 42-27 at the end of the first half.

The Lady Tigers would hold Cloud County to 3-of-16 shooting in the third quarter while out-scoring the T-Birds 21-8 to pull within 50-48 heading into the final quarter.

Cowley scored the first five points of the fourth quarter and led 62-60 following a basket by Aniyah Burney with 1:18 remaining. However, the Lady Tigers committed three turnovers in the final 56 seconds and allowed Cloud to score nine straight points before a three-pointer by Burney at the buzzer.

"We fought back to give ourselves a chance and really just gave it away," Cowley head coach Todd Clark said.

Despite forcing Cloud into 11 more turnovers (28-17) in the contest, the Tigers had two more turnovers than the T-Birds in the final 10 minutes of play.

The Tigers went 15-of-15 from the free-throw line, but were out-scored by seven (22-15) at the charity stripe as Cloud made 22-of-28 free throw attempts.

Burney shot 10-of-20 from the floor, while the rest of the Lady Tiger starters combined to make just 6-of-25 shot attempts. Burney has now scored 20 or more points in four straight games to raise her season average to 15.8. Saliyah Henderson-Johnson came off the bench to add nine points on 4-of-5 shooting before fouling out.

The T-Birds owned the boards, out-rebounding Cowley 49-26. Cloud's Lauren Marron and Leila Washington combined to make 6-of-11 three-point attempts and finished with 19 points apiece, while Amanda Makela made a pair of big three-pointers in the final quarter and scored 10 of her 15 points over the final 10 minutes of play.

Cowley will return home to face former Tiger head coach Darin Spence and his Colby Trojan squad on Saturday at 1 p.m. Colby is 11-10 overall and 8-7 in the Jayhawk Conference. Cowley won the earlier matchup between the teams in Arkansas City, 57-44.

Box score:

Cowley (65): Mallory Jackson 1-8 4-4 7, Naya Burleson 2-7 2-2 7, Megan Simon 2-5 0-0 4, Zuzanna Komor 1-5 2-2 4, Aniyah Burney 10-20 7-7 30, Zari Walker 2-7 0-0 4, Makenna Justus 0-1 0-0 0, Yatzel Renteria 0-1 0-0 0, Saliyah Henderson-Johnson 4-5 0-0 9. Totals: 22-59 15-15 65.

Cloud (69): Shea Wurtz 1-5 1-4 3, Lauren Marron 6-9 3-3 19, Leila Washington 7-13 3-4 19, Amanda Makela 4-15 4-4 15, Marilyn Soeken 1-7 4-5 6, Sofija Todorovic 0-3 6-6 6, Sadie Cornell 0-2 1-2 1, Jelena Jankovic 0-3 0-0 0. Totals: 19-57 22-28 69.

Three-pointers: Cowley 6-21 (Burney 3-8, Jackson 1-4, Burleson 1-2, Henderson-Johnson 1-1, Walker 0-2, Komor 0-2, Justus 0-1, Renteria 0-1), Cloud 9-30 (Makela 3-13, Maron 4-7, Washington 2-4, Jankovic 0-3, Soeken 0-2, Comell 0-1). Rebounds: Cowley 26 (Jackson 5), Cloud 49 (Wurtz 12). Assists: Cowley 13 (Burney 6), Cloud 13 (Makela 4). Turnovers: Cowley 17, Cloud 28. Total fouls: Cowley 22, Cloud 15. Fouled out: Henderson-Johnson. Technicals: none.