Fort Hays Tech holds off Indians 74-72

The battle of two one-loss teams came down the final shot Friday as Fort Hays Tech Northwest held off McCook Community College 74-72 at the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center.

The Tigers went up 68-61 with 1:58 in the game left but MCC fought back to cut the gap to 70-67 with 45.6 seconds left. Fort Hays Tech struggled to put the game away at the free-throw line and MCC came back with a dunk by Lukas Gudavicius to pull the Indians within 71-69 with 34.2 second left.

A Dijbril Diawara 3-pointer with 12 second left made it a 73-72 game and after the Tigers hit one of two free throws, MCC had a chance to tie or win the game on a long shot with time expiring but the shot fell just short of the rim.

“I think our guys played really good down the stretch and gave us a shot to win it but just missed a shot at the buzzer,” said MCC Coach Dillon Hargrove. “We fought and clawed the entire game and I’m proud of our guys.”

Fort Hays Tech took their largest lead of the game – nine points with 7:19 left in the game.

Hargrove said he thought with about eight or nine minutes left in the game foul calls changed the game with a couple buckets taken away from the Indians.

“At the end of the day, Fort Hays did what then needed to,” said MCC Coach Dillon Hargrove. “They’re good at getting to the line.”

The Tigers finished the game hitting 16 of 31 free throws (52.6 percent) but outscored MCC by seven at the line. The Indians made nine of 13 free throws (69.2 percent).

MCC got off to a slow start and trailed at the half, 30-24.

“We played awful in the first half offensively,” said Hargrove. “We weren’t playing our game and weren’t taking the shots we usually take.”

The Indians went 11-for-33 from the field (33.3 percent), made just one of 13 shots from the 3-point arc (7.8 percent) and hit just one of three free throws (33.3 percent.

“In the second half we fixed our offense, shooting and looked more like ourselves,” said Hargrove.

MCC made 18 of 36 field goals in the second half (50 percent) and made for of 11 3-pointers to finish the game at 42.0 percent from the floor.

Fort Hays shot 38.2 percent for the game and made six of 22 triples (27.3 percent). The Tigers out-rebounded MCC 52-42.

Sophomore Nate Coley, (Little Rock, Ark.) led MCC with 23 points. Diawara, freshman guard from Aulnay-sous-Bois, France hit four of 11 triples and finished with 18 points.

Sophomore transfer Mo Diao, (Darkar, Senegal) led MCC on the glass with 13 boards to go along with eight points. Alier Alier (freshman, Bor, South Sudan) had seven rebounds and six points. Gudavicius, (sophomore, Palanga, Lithuania) scored seven points.

The team from Goodland, Kan. improves to 4-1 on the season with wins over three Region IX teams including MCC, North Platte and Northeastern Junior College.

The 4-2 Indians continue their three-game homestand Monday with a 7 p.m. game against York University JV then host No. 11 Indian Hills Community College Friday, Nov. 21 at 7 p.m.

Up-to-date information about MCC women’s basketball including livestream links for home games, schedule, statistics, rosters, photos and more can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com