By Steve Carpenter

HCC Sports Information Director

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Freshman Darius Johnson-Odom scored 27 points to lead the Hutchinson Community College men’s basketball team to a 77-69 victory over Cloud County in the 2009 Jayhawk West regular-season finale on Saturday night at the Sports Arena.

Hutchinson (19-11, 8-8 Jayhawk West) finish tied for fifth with Pratt in the Jayhawk West standings. The Blue Dragons win the tiebreaker with the Beavers to earn the fifth seed out of the Jayhawk West for next week’s Region VI Tournament. The Blue Dragons will be on the road for the first round of the Region VI Tournament, playing on Wednesday night at Neosho County.

“From a confidence standpoint,” HCC head coach Ryan Swanson said, “and obviously from a seeding standpoint, these guys didn’t want to loose at home and have a losing record in conference, this was big for the kids.”

The Blue Dragons didn’t score for the first 5 minutes, 12 seconds of the game, but Cloud County (18-12, 7-9) wasn’t able to take advantage of the drought. After scoring the first bucket of the game with 19:11 to play, the Thunderbirds went 6 minutes, 50 seconds without a point and trailed 9-4 with 12:22 to play in the half.

From that point, HCC built leads as large at 16 points early in the second half before the T-Birds cut that lead to 59-56 with 6:08 to play. Johnson-Odom then put the Dragons on his back with a three-point play and 3-point basket to held HCC regain control and push the lead back to double figures with 4:01 to play.

“Darius has made big shots all year,” Swanson said. “You want a kid taking those kids of shots who you know gets in the gym a lot on their own. Darius gets up thousands of shots on his own every week. That’s why he’s able to have confidence to knock those shots down.”

Added freshman Dominique Rutledge: “We look to Darius for big buckets all the time for big buckets. When we are down, we go to him. Every team needs somebody like that.”

Johnson-Odom was 9 of 15 from the field, including 4 of 5 from 3-point range, to finish with 27 points, hi 20th 20-point game this season.

Rutledge posted his fifth double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds, shooting 6 of 9 from the field. Freshman Tom Shirley knocked down 4 of 7 3-point goals to finish with 14 points.

The Blue Dragons shot 47.4 percent (27 of 57), including 9 of 15 from 3-point range. HCC was 14 of 22 from the free-throw line.

HCC was outrebounded 38-37 and turned the ball over 16 times.

Eric Marshall had 17 points and eight rebounds to lead Cloud County. Chris White-Ready was 6 of 9 shooting for 14 points and Andrew Taylor had 10 points.

The T-Birds shot 28 of 67 overall (41.8 percent), going 4 of 17 from 3-point range and 9 of 17 from the free-throw line.

After the Dragons finally got on the scoreboard, they went on a 9-0 run and led 9-2 after a transition dunk by Johnson-Odom with 12:39 to play. Cloud’s Patrick Schulte ended Cloud’s scoreless run with a 3-pointer with 12:22 to play and scored seven straight to tie the game at 9-all with 10:09 to play on a White-Ready bucket.

HCC countered with a 13-2 run over the next 2:58 to lead 22-11 with 6:26 to play on a Rutledge basket. Cloud then scored six straight points to cut the Dragon lead to 22-17 with 4:25 remaining. Shirley stopped that T-Bird run with a baseline 3-pointer and helped HCC take a 32-23 lead at halftime.

Hutchinson opened the second half on an 8-1 run to lead 40-24 with 18:32 to play after a Cliff Dixon basket. Cloud scored eight straight to cut the HCC margin in half. But the Dragons continued to hold off every Thunderbird charge.

Marshall’s dunk with 6:08 to go got Cloud County within 59-56, but that’s as close as the T-Birds drew to. Johnson-Odom scored eight straight points as part of a 12-1 run to help the Dragons finally take control of the game.

GAME NOTES – Five Blue Dragon sophomores – Austin Bond, Ryan Douvier, Dixon, Javari Williams and Cody Beaton – played their final home game on Saturday night. … With the win over Cloud County, HCC split with all eight Jayhawk West teams this season. … HCC is 36-14 all time vs. Cloud County, 20-2 at the Sports Arena. … This was program victory No. 1,517. … With HCC’s four blocked shots, the Dragons extend their school record to 157 rejections. … HCC is 16-3 at the Sports Arena this season. … Bond had a career-high six assists. … The Dragons are 2-7 when being outrebounded.

 

BOXSCORE

PHOTO GALLERY

 

OTHER QUOTES

Head Coach Ryan Swanson

On the teams’ overall defense …

“When we play well, that’s been our calling card is that we’ve done a good job defensively. The guys came out with really good intensity. Anytime you hold a good team like Cloud to 29 percent shooting, you are doing something right. We lost our focus in the second half. We let them back into the game. We made some big shots and got some stops at the end.”

 

On Tom Shirley …

“Even though Tom is a power forward and is 6-8, he’s one of the best 3-point shooters around. He also gets up a lot of shots on his own. He’s confident he can make those shots. “

 

Freshman Darius Johnson-Odom

On getting a win heading into the postseason …

“This is very important win for us. We have confidence now. Even though we have a road game, we have a win under our belt. It was good getting this win tonight going into the playoffs.”

 

On the teams’ overall defense …

“The defense was awesome. We rotated and closed out good. We blocked out and we finished with a rebound. That’s what we want to do every possession on defense.”

 

On Dominique Rutledge …

“Big Dom plays hard. He rebounds good. He’s a good player. We just have to feed him the ball and see what he can do.”

 

Freshman Dominique Rutledge

On his overall game …

“Hopefully I’m back in the groove. My ankle slowed me up for a while, but hopefully I’m through it now.”

 

On what he did to have a big game …

“I just want to keep it simple and get my timing back. Confidence, you can’t do anything without confidence. I had to get my confidence back.”