Beauregard’s 27 Not Enough as Saints Fall to Cowley

The Seward County Saints couldn’t defend their home floor Saturday night in the Greenhouse, going cold down the stretch to fall 84-73 to visiting Cowley, giving the Tigers just their third win on the road all season.

The game was even five minutes into things as Seward and Cowley were tied at 12. A 7-0 Seward run pushed the Saints out in front 19-12, but the Tigers put up the next six to quickly cut the Seward lead back down to one at 19-18. The Saints continued to lead by one at 28-27 at the 6:12 mark before Cowley knotted things up at 29 with just under five minutes to go in the half. It was the Ryker Pierce show from there as the Cowley sophomore scored 15 points in a span of just 3:56 to send the Tigers into the locker rooms at half leading the Saints 46-40.

Seward shot 48% in the half and got 16 from Charles Beauregard, but Pierce had a career high 22 in just one half of action and the Tigers outpaced the Saints 10-1 on the offensive glass in the period for the six point lead.

The break at half didn’t cool Pierce off as he came out in the second and quickly put up seven more points in the first 3:18, pushing the Cowley lead to 10 at 55-45. The Saints picked things up on their end of the floor to keep themselves in the game, but the Seward defense had no answer for the Cowley attack as it remained a 10 point game at the second half media timeout 74-64. Seward cut the Cowley lead in half by the six minute mark as Kevin Sims slashed and scored to make it a 78-73 game, but the Saints would not score for the final 5:48 as Cowley took the air out of the ball and tacked on six to their lead to walk away with an 84-73 win.

Seward finished the game shooting 51% from the field, but were crushed on the glass as Cowley outrebounded them by 21 including a 19-2 discrepancy on the offensive glass in the contest. Beauregard finished with 27, but Sims was the only other Seward player in double figures with 14. Pierce led four Cowley scorers in double figures with 36, 15 points over his previous career high of 21.

Seward falls to 7-16 on the year and 4-15 in Jayhawk Conference play where they drop back into a tie for last place with Pratt. Cowley improves to 13-10 overall and 10-9 in conference action and jump into a 7th place tie with seven league games remaining.

The Saints will hit the road for their longest road trip of the season on Wednesday when they travel to Coffevyille to take on the Red Ravens in a 7:30 tip, looking to sweep the season series with the Birds.

SEWARD COUNTY/COWLEY BOX SCORE<http://www.sewardsaints.com/sports/mbkb/2016-17/boxscores/20170204_koyt.xml?view=boxscore>

Roy Allenu