Dodge City men edge MCC 74-73 at home

The McCook Community College men battled back from a slow start, took a short-lived second-half lead but lost to Dodge City Community College at home Tuesday, 74-73.

"You really can't ask for more of an effort than what our guys gave," said MCC Coach Jacob Brandl. "I didn't think we played great a lot of times but we played hard. You just can't spot a good team like that early on like we did."

Dodge City took a 28-14 lead with 9:47 left in the half.

"We just weren't attacking like we needed to and we got beat up early," Brandl said.

The Conquistadors raced to an 11-2 lead 4:19 into the game, stretched it to 16-5 at the 13:29 mark before MC surged back with an 11-2 run and pulled to 30-25 at the 3:33 mark of the first half. Dodge City held on to lead at intermission, 33-32.

MCC took its only lead of the game at the 18:02 mark of the second half.

"Credit to our guys in the second half, we really cleaned some things up and credit to them they made some shots when the game plan was really to pack it in and create a wall in the paint and when we did that we did a lot of good stuff defensively," Brandl said.

Dodge City shot 49.0 percent from the field for the game, making two of nine 3-pointers in the first half (22.2 percent) and three of eight (37.5 percent) in the second half.

"They stepped up and made some good shots when they needed to from the 3-point line. They didn't shoot a great percentage but made some big ones and we missed the big ones," Brandl said.

MCC made three of 12 3-pointers in the first half (33.3 percent) then canned five of 10 in the second half (50 percent). Overall from the field MCC shot 34.2 percent.

"It's hard for me to feel bad where we're at when you get that effort," Brandl said.

He cited MCC's 21 offensive rebounds and 21 defensive rebounds. Both teams had 42.

Damien Perry (Wareham, Mass.) scored 11 points had three assists and didn't turn the ball over. Julian Lual (Calgary, Alberta) scored 19 points and grabbed 15 rebounds including seven on the offensive end and sank three of five 3-pointers. Martin Poznanovic (Uzice, Serbia) scored eight points had nine rebounds, and Brandl liked his defensive effort in the post.

 "Damien Perry was solid, Julian Lual was a warrior and Martin had a big task ahead of him in who he was guarding and went after him and did a good job as well," Brandl said. "We just had a lot of good minutes from a lot of guys."

DaMiene Boles Jr. (Dayton, Ohio) scored 17 points and D'Andre Dennis (Charlotte, N.C.) scored 10 points and grabbed seven rebounds.

MCC goes to 1-6 while Dodge City improves to 5-1. The five teams that MCC has lost to (Colby twice) have compiled a 26-4 mark to start the season. MCC's losses have come to two teams ranked in the top 12 nationally and three more have come to teams receiving votes just outside the Top 25, including Dodge City.

"I'm really proud of this team. This one really hurts," Brandl said. "We are so close and I know if we continue to stay the course good things are going to come and it rewards toughness and right now we have a tough group, we just have to figure out ways to be better throughout the game."

On Friday MCC travels to Ottumwa, Iowa for the Indian Hills Classic to take on No. 8 Indian Hills at 7 p.m., then face North Central Missouri College at 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

For more photos from tonight's game, please visit the MCC Facebook Page at: https://www.facebook.com/MPCCMcCook