Box Score Two things doomed the Conquistador men's basketball team when they traveled to Pratt Community College on Wednesday night: a slow start and torrid free throw shooting from the Beavers. In the end despite a run to overcome the slow start, the Conqs could not complete their comeback as Pratt finished the game 28-31 from the free throw line.
In the first half the Conqs were looking to get themselves back into a good spot in the race for the playoffs, but instead came out flat and struggled against a zone defense from Pratt. Dodge only scored four points in the first six and a half minutes of the game. Their defense kept them in it as they only allowed 11 points during that time, but still trailed by seven. At the first half media timeout the Conqs had finally gotten their offense going a bit and trailed by a 17 to 12 count. After the Beavers scored four straight, a 5-0 run by
Kevin Howard pulled the Conqs back to within four with just over eight minutes left in the first half. After
Justice Dixon hit two free throws when Pratt's coach was assessed with a technical foul the Conqs pulled to within one as
Mike Burns hit a long jumper on the ensuing in-bounds play. With just under six minutes left in the first half two free throws from
Joe Petrakis finally got the game tied up at 26. Unfortunately they were not able to keep the momentum going as Pratt went on a 12-6 run over the remainder of the first half to take a 38-32 lead into the locker room.
Both teams battled through the first five minutes of the second half, but the Pratt lead stayed between four and eight points during that whole time period. The Beavers did go on a run over the next minute to stretch their lead out to 52 to 40 with 14 minutes left in the game. This was aided by a pair of missed free throws and two turnovers from the Conqs. Dodge City started chipping away at the lead and over the next five and a half minutes they closed the gap to 58-57. This run was capped by a 18 foot jumper from
Jyrus Freels. The Conqs would go cold at that point as they only scored two points over the next five minutes and fell behind 68 to 59 with three and a half minutes left in the game. Dodge City was never able to close to closer than six points the rest of the way as Pratt finished out the game by hitting 9 of their final 10 free throws.
Jyrus Freels led the Conqs with 18 points and 10 rebounds on the night. No other Conq was able to get into double digits as
Laurence Bryant with 9 and
Mike Burns with 8 were the next wo most effective players.
The Conqs will be back in action to finish off the first round off Jayhawk West Conference play at home on Saturday at 3:00pm. They will host Northwest Kansas Technical College at the Student Activity Center, and the game will be the winter homecoming game for Dodge City Community College.
