MCC men overcome 17-point deficit to down Colby 75-67

GOODLAND, Kan. — The McCook Community College men's basketball team overcame a 17-point first half deficit Friday to down Colby Community College 75-67. The win came in the opening game of the Northwest Kansas Technical College Classic in the Max L. Jones Field house.

MCC executed a 25-point turnaround from the point the team trailed by 17-points with eight minutes left in the half. MCC cut the gap to 40-31 at intermission, tied the game at the 13:10 mark of the second half, and won by eight points.

"Our group showed a lot of toughness there the end of the first half and the entire second," said MCC Coach Jacob Brandl.

After MCC tied the score seven minutes into the second half, the two teams remained close until MCC took a 62-60 lead with 3:28 left in the game. MCC outscored Colby 44-27 in the second half and outshot the Trojans 60 percent to 36 percent.

"I thought once we settled down and played with some discipline, we were really good on both ends," said Brandl.

Sophomore Trey Summers (Greeley, Colo.) led the offense with 19 points and five assists, he went 11 of 13 from the free-throw line.

Sophomore transfer Simon Akena (Stockholm, Sweden) scored 13 points and grabbed six rebounds. Jah-Keish Demby, (freshman, Wilmington, Del.) added 13 points. Noah Boyed, 7-0 freshman from Castries, St. Lucia, led MCC with seven rebounds and added eight points making four of five shots from the field.

"Our playbook was really good today and our guys did a great job of getting us into our sets and then executing," said Brandl.

For the game MCC shot 47.4 percent from the field, made four of 14 3-pointers (28.6 percent) and went 17 of 28 from the line (60.7 percent).

Colby finished shooting 48.2 percent from the field, made three of 10 from distance and 10 of 15 from the line (66.7 percent.) Colby outrebounded MCC 33-28.

"I've said all year long that when we get the game to 5-on-5 we are really hard to score on and that's what happened," Brandl said. "We didn't turn it over in the second half and got back and settled in and that was the game because Colby has some guys that can really score it."

Colby falls to 2-3 on the season.

MCC improves to 2-2 on the year and continues in the tournament Saturday taking on the host Mavericks Saturday at 4 p.m..

"Tomorrow will be a completely different game with Northwest's zone so it will have to be another game where we have to take care of it and knock down shots, we need to get our shooters going," said Brandl.

For all the up-to-date information on MCC basketball this season and all sports including schedules, statistics, rosters and photos, please visit the official website of MCC Athletics at mccindians.com