ACCC women beat Panthers

The streak is over.
Allen County Community College’s Red Devil women snapped a 17-game losing streak as a homecoming present for the Red Devil faithful Saturday. The Red Devils weathered several rallies by visiting Neosho County Community College’s Panthers to claim a 54-45 victory.
“I’m so happy for the girls and very proud of how they worked hard to get the win,” said Sacha Santimano, ACCC head coach. “I told the girls it was going to come down to who wants the ball in their hands the most. Our players wanted the basketball and the win.”
It was the first time the Red Devils won since Nov. 6 — a 66-64 win over Missouri Valley’s junior varsity. The 3-18 Red Devils hadn’t won at home since a season-opening win on Nov. 2.
The victory also marked the first win for Santimano as a head coach and it came against her alma mater. Santimano, in her first year as an assistant coach at Allen County, was announced as interim head coach for ACCC last week.
“It felt good,” she said with a smile. “I told the girls it would make me extremely happy if we beat Neosho County.”
Allen County’s players wore pink hair ribbons and sported pink shoe laces for the game. Santimano and Whitney Falkenstien, who served as assistant on the bench, were in shades of pink and wearing tennis shoes all for Coaches vs. Cancer.
Allen County trailed just once, 2-0, in the game. Danielle Best nailed two threes and Queona Walker hit one of two free throws in between to put the Red Devils up 7-2 with 15:33 left in the first half.
Neosho County’s Ayonna Lancaster and Ashley King had back-to-back baskets then Rackell Goldson entered the game for Allen County. Goldson, who led all scorers with 20 points, had a three-point play and hit two more free throws.
Every time the Panthers would claw back to within striking distance the Red Devils had the answer. Allen County was up 17-10 then the Panthers scored five points and had the ball after a Red Devils turnover.
The Red Devil defense got the stop. Another factor in the game — free throw shooting. The Red Devils knocked down 23 of 33 attempts to the Panthers’ 8 of 13.
Allen County answered that NCCC five-point run with 5 of 6 free throws as Jazmynn Johnson, Best and Walker went to the line. Best hit another trey to make it 25-17 with 4:20 left in the opening 20 minutes.
Goldson had back-to-back baskets to push Allen County’s lead to 10, 29-19 with two minutes left. Allen County left the court at intermission with a 31-23 advantage.
“I talk to the team about five-minute games within the game itself,” Santimano said. “We talk of short term goals and that’s what we did tonight. When we go into that four to six-minute scoring drought, we play good defense and make stops. The offense is going to come — we just have to continue to play defense and not allow a team to make a big run on us.”
The Panthers scored the first four points out of the break. Johnson and Kynesha Nisbett   countered with baskets for the Devils. Allen County pushed to a 39-29 lead with 14:26 remaining the game.
Another Neosho County run cut the margin to four, then Johnson sank two free throws to put ACCC up 41-35 with 10 minutes on the clock. The Red Devils didn’t score for the next four minutes but they only gave up one basket.
Aeriss McNeese got fouled on a rebound and hit one of two free throws at the 6:05 mark. A save by Nisbett at the defensive end led to a basket by Nicole Swick to give the Red Devils a 44-37 lead.
Protecting a four-point lead, 45-41, with just under four minutes left in the game, Goldson had a three-point play for Allen County. A key play came with 2:13 on the clock.
Allen County missed a shot and Neosho County appeared to have a fastbreak set up but Johnson was back to go up and intercept a long pass down court. The Red Devils answered with a fastbreak layup by Maurissa Shaffer.
Allen County sank 4 of 9 free throws in the last minute and a half to seal the win. The Red Devils held the Panthers to two points in the final 2:41.
“The girls went out and played the game and things happen for them. I just kept telling them to play our game not allowing them (Neosho County) to take it from us,” Santimano said.
Allen County got its first win in Jayhawk Eastern Division play. The Red Devils (1-8, 3-18) shot 36 percent, 14 of 39, from the field.
Best had 11 points and five rebounds. Goldson pulled down six of her team’s 37 rebounds and Johnson had five rebounds.
Henderson led the Panthers with 19 points and Downs added 11. The Panthers shot at a 29-percent clip, 18 of 62, from the field.
The Red Devils play on the road all this week starting with a game at Highland (2-8, 10-12) on Wednesday. They play at Kansas City, Kan., Saturday.
Allen County (31-23—54) (FG/3-pt): Shaffer 1-0-2-2, Walker 0-3-1-3, Swick 1-2-0-4, Goldson 6-8-1-20, Best 0/3-2-2-11, McNeese 1-1-3-3, Johnson 2-5-1-9, Nisbett 0-2-3-2. TOTALS: 11/3-23-13-54.
Neosho County (23-22—45) (FG/3-pt): Garner 0-0-5-0, Campbell 0/1-0-2-3, Lancaster 2-0-2-4, King 3-0-4-6, Zenon 0-0-3-0, Hadley 1-0-0-2, Downs 4-3-5-11, Henderson 7-5-3-19. TOTALS: 17/1-8-24-45.