By Marissa VanWingen, The Times-Citizen
Iowa Falls, IA – Ellsworth Community College did what they needed to and earned a dominant 105-83 win over Western Iowa Technical College on Wednesday. That victory not only ended a three-game losing skid by the Panthers, it keeps them in the hunt for at least one home game come tournament time.
"It was good to see us open up a game, hit some shots, get out in transition, have some big power rebounds and those types of things," said ECC head coach Bryan Bender. "If we win these next two we're going to finish third in the conference, and still get a home game and you never know what will happen."
The Panthers (18-10, 8-8) scored the first 14 points of the game and the advantage just went up from there. Rav Randhawa drained three of his four long balls in the opening quarter. The Comets (6-22, 3-14) finally got on the board with 5:10 off the game clock. The visitors were able to cut the deficit to five at one point (17-12) before ECC went on another scoring spree. The hosts went on a 12-4 run with Taevean Famutimi-Brown hitting two triples. The team had five makes from outside in the first half and seven in the second. The difference was 44-31 at the break.
The second half saw even more scoring, from both teams. The Panthers pulled away to a 20-point lead on a Tre Burris triple. That jumpstarted another scoring splurge and a 9-0 run. ECC was hot from the floor, making 50.6 percent of their shots on the floor and going 12 of 24 for deep. They also nabbed 13 more rebounds than the visitors.
Ten different players reached the scoring column, while six were in double-figures. Burris nearly had a double-double with 21 points, nine rebounds and five assists.
There are two games left in the ICCAC and five teams all have eight losses. ECC holds the tiebreaker over Iowa Central and Iowa Western, but Iowa Lakes and NIACC both swept the Panthers meaning they would have the upper-hand.
ECC plays Southwestern (10-18, 4-12) and Northeast (7-16, 4-12) to end the season.
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