CONCORDIA – Seeking to close out the decade with their seventh 20-win season in the past 10 years, the Cloud County Community College women’s basketball team will look to have a youth movement take over and play key roles in 2019-20.
Just four players return from last year’s 18-13 campaign that saw the T-Birds make the Region VI Tournament Quarterfinals, but the lack of returners isn’t anything that has prevented CCCC from having success in the past.
“We’re kind of starting over and every year is different but it’s not easy to replace three all-conference players in Scout Frame who was a 1,000 point scorer for us, Cassidy Hauffler, and Emily Hendrixxson” said head women’s basketball coach Brett Erkenbrack who is set to begin his 31st season at the helm of the T-Birds. “I think we have some quality incoming players and returners and we expect to see a good mix from our players. “LaKya Leslie and Jacy Dalinghaus are two players that I would expect to be big factors in our success this year, and we’ve also seen good things from Alyssa Castilleja and Kelsie Kelly at the guard positions early on.” “Hopefully we’ll be a factor in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference again, but there are a lot of question marks for our team coming in due to the number of new players which isn’t anything unique to just this year.”
With a 20-game conference schedule in place for the second-straight year, Cloud County will look to make the most of their 10 non-conference games in which six of will take place at while nine of the 10 games take place prior to the start of Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference play. Further complicating things will be two stretches that see the T-Birds play 11 games in the month of November and 10 games in the month of January while playing a total of just nine games during the months of December and February.
“We need to look at the big picture and realize that it’s more of a marathon than a sprint in the season.” “Starting the season with four games in seven days to start lends itself to what our girls will face throughout the year and depth will be a factor this year.” “Staying injury free and pacing ourselves is key, so hopefully we can be prepared for the beginning but more importantly the end as the KJCCC is a grind with the travel and number of games against top competition.”
Two straight home games will kick things off for Cloud County with the T-Birds hosting the Doane JV team and Northeast Community College before heading to Northeast for the Northeast CC Classic where they will face off with Iowa Central and Iowa Lakes CC to finish off a span of four games in the opening week of the season. CCCC will then return home for two of their next three as Cloud County will host Southeast Community College, travel to Iowa Western, and then return home to host the Bethany College JV team with three games over a six-day period. The final two games before conference play starts will see the T-Birds host preseason number two ranked South Plains College and the Peru State JV team ahead of their KJCCC opener at Garden City on November 27th.
Perennial KJCCC Power Seward County will serve as the KJCCC home opener for Cloud County as the T-Birds will host the Saints on November 30th before opening the month of December four days later with a home game against Colby. CCCC will then end the month with games at Dodge City and Hutchinson before heading out for an extended holiday break that will see CCCC go 22 days between games.
Kicking off the 2020 portion of the schedule will be the non-conference finale as a home-and-home series with Iowa Western concludes on January 2nd before seeing the T-Birds finish off KJCCC West Division play with three games in seven days (hosting Northwest Tech, at Barton, hosting Pratt). Last season’s KJCCC East champion Butler Community College will serve as the KJCCC East Division opener for Cloud County with the T-Birds hosting the Grizzlies on January 13th before playing consecutive road games at Coffeyville and at Cowley. The month of January will then end with two of three games at home as Cloud County will host Allen and Neosho while traveling to Independence.
When the calendar turns over to February, it will mark the second time around in KJCCC East play as teams will swap locations in regards to where the game was held the first time around. Following a trip to El Dorado to take on Butler, Cloud County will then host Coffeyville for Homecoming/Hall of Fame Night before hosting Cowley two nights later for Academic Night. CCCC then hits the road for a return trip to Allen, will host Independence for Sophomore Night, and travel to Neosho for it’s regular-season finale.
“The Jayhawk Conference and our schedule has changed dramatically in my 30 years as a head coach and now that we have conference games prior to Thanksgiving it moves up the timeline of everything we want to do.” “More things have to be put in during a shorter time span and it takes a greater concentration and focus from our players to be able to put everything in.” “Add in the travel that you face in the conference and the schedule forces you to be ready to play a lot quicker than in years past with the way the schedule is now set up.”