Coffeyville Nips Chipola, Sets Up All Kansas Final

In the day’s second semifinal contest, #10 Seed Coffeyville CC (KS) (25-3), went head to head with #6 Seed Chipola College (FL), bringing with them a 23-4 record. Both teams have similar styles of play, they liked to play defense the old fashion way…guard hard, and force teams into doing things other than what they want. Both comfortable in making the game into a half court battle, although not afraid to push it when the opportunity arises.

Coffeyville was the nation’s 22nd ranked defense in points allowed, giving up only 66.4 ppg. The Indians (from Marianna FL), had the 2nd best team in the same statistic, holding their opponents to an average of 61.4 points.

Everything pointed to a slower pace than witnessed in most of the previous tournament games. Especially the one’s involving the other finalist, Cowley College, who had been scoring at a pace of 2.96 points per minute. Which translates to 118.3 points per game. Cowley claimed their spot in the Championship game with a 116-97 conquest over Ranger College (TX) about two hours earlier.

As expected, the two teams slugged it out, slowly but surely crawling their way to a one point game at intermission. Chipola was clinging to that narrow margin, 29-28.

Coffeyville scored first after 70 seconds of play on a Blaise Keita basket. Chipola’ Carlos Lemus tipped the scale in the Indians favor three minutes later with a bunny in the paint. Chipola held the lead until under a minute in the half when the Red Ravens’ Larry White hit both ends of a one & one to give CCC a one point lead, 26-25.

There were nine ties, and three lead changes in the first twenty minutes, the last one coming with four seconds on the clock when Lemus was fouled by Love Bettis of the Ravens. Lemus nailed all three free shots to end the scoring. Even though Chipola controlled the scoreboard, they couldn’t get any separation. Their largest lead was 4 on several occasions.

Coffeyville came out punching following the break. They wasted little time (5 minutes) building an 11 point lead on a Keita steal, a dish from Tylor Perry and a fast break lay in by Hayden Brittingham.

That margin was extended to fourteen, their largest in the game when Love Bettis hit a trey. That made the score 47-33 at the 13:22 mark.

For the next five minutes of game clock, the lights went out on Coffeyville. They failed to score a single point. Meanwhile, offensively, the lights came on for Chipola. They went on a 14-0 run to even things up at 47 on a FT by Jo Smith.

Less than ten seconds later, after a turnover by Bostyn Holt, the Indians took the lead when Bryce Zephir found the bottom of the net. The Indians had jabbed their way back and found their second wind.

The next two FGs however, belonged to the Ravens, both triples, one by Love Bettis and the other by Tylor Perry. Those two bombs were damaging to the Indians cause although they managed to take the lead three more times before the end.

A Carlos Lemus FT with one minute left brought Chipola two with 2, 65-63, but that was the last points the South Atlantic District Champs would score.

Coffeyville added a FT by Perry, trailing by three, a Chipola desperation heave from 3/4 court went awry, and the Ravens win in a dogfight, 66-63, and are on their way to an all Kansas final, and another clash with District and Jayhawk East Conference foe, the Cowley College Tigers.

In all there were 14 times and the lead swapped 12 times. Chipola won the FG% and rebounding battle, but went -6 in the turnover department, and after going 4-9 from three point land in the first stanza, they slumped to 1-6 in the second.

Coffeyville had three players in double figures, all starters. They were led by Bettis carding 17, Perry was next depositing 14, and Keita added 11, posting a double double with 11 rebounds. Perry added four assist. The Ravens move to 26-3, and will play Saturday night at 6 in the title game.

Chipola finishes the year with a 23-5 record. Leading scorer was Carlos Lemus with a game high 27. Lemus made 8 of his 13 FG attempts (3-5 on treys). Jaeden Zackery was the only other Indian in double figures, contributing 17 points with 3 helpers. Nae’Qwan Tomlin had team high 7 rebounds.

This is not the first time two Kansas schools have faced-off for the National Championship. Eldorado JC and Arkansas City JC (now Cowley College) matched up in the 1953 finals. Eldorado won the game 80-64. That was the only other time Cowley has made it to the finals.