The Jayhawks (6-13, 0-7) were able to pick up and maintain a lead in the early going all the way to a 33-31 margin at halftime, only to have turnovers and offensive misfires derail their valiant attempt to hand the Tribunes (16-4, 8-1) a second regional loss.

Jamestown CC was able to lock down Monroe CC’s strongest shooters in the early going while relying on diverse offense from the likes of Terrence Cosby, Germaine Wright, David Williams, Keshaun Howard and Chris Robson, but that scoring parity would fade in the second half along with the Jayhawks’ defensive pressure.

“You have to pick your poison, what are you going to let Monroe do,” Jamestown CC coach George Sisson said after the loss. “The first half is exactly what we wanted to do, we wanted to make non-volume shooters shoot the majority of the shots, and they did. They scored 30 points.”

“Second half, all of a sudden (Majesty Brandon, Gilberto Cue, Noah West), all of your volume guys now are shooting and we give up (47),” Sisson added. “First half we were a well-prepared team that was bought in to what we wanted to do. That was a terrific first half for us.”

Jamestown CC’s Terrance Cosby attempts to shoot over Monroe CC’s Brien Wilson during their NJCAA Region 3 Division II men’s basketball game Thursday night at the Physical Education Complex. P-J photo by Valory S. Isaacson

While Brandon would catch fire late on his way to a team-high 28 points, the freshman guard was held to just 5 points in the first 20 minutes of play while both Cue and Omari Brown finished the period 0 for 4 from the field in the face of strong defensive pressure.

A pair of treys, the first from Wright and the second from Robson, catalyzed Jamestown’s early lead at 8-7 before Williams was able to hit a deep 2 off a screen and then bang home a 3 on the following possession to lift the hosts to a 17-12 margin.

Taking care of much of the inside work for Jamestown CC was Terrance Cosby, whose presence was sorely missed in the first half of the season down low.

The 6-foot-7 sophomore battled his way to a 13-point, 13-rebound double-double despite facing off against the 6-foot-9 Wilson for much of the night.

While the return of Cosby has been a boon for the Jayhawks post play, Sisson is still dealing with personnel issues in the latter half of the season.

“We are undermanned. Tavion (King) is still out with an ankle from Niagara. He went down two minutes into the second half,” Sisson said. “We were undermanned but it’s not like anybody played poorly for us. We had turnovers in the second half, three or four possessions right in a row that just gave them breakouts, and then in the midst of that we had a couple of balls that we could have came up with that we didn’t.”

While Sisson’s team would relinquish its lead in the final 20 minutes of play, it was not as though the Jayhawks came out flat as Robson was able to hit Wright in the post for a bucket before Williams managed to bang home another 2 down low to improve the hosts’ lead to 37-31.

From there the Tribunes would finally get their shooters going, beginning with an off-balance shot in the lane by Brandon before three consecutive buckets down low from the likes of Brown, Mike Kelly Jr. on a second-chance putback and Brandon once again with a baseline jumper.

That rush brought things back to even at 39-39 with five minutes of play elapsed.

“We’re a tie game at 14 (minutes) to play. So we led the game for 26 minutes doing everything we wanted,” Sisson said. “We had some opportunites that we didn’t finish.”

Jamestown CC would see one final lead at 43-42 after Wright hit a pullup at the line, but that shot was stacked in between treys by Brandon and preceded several big buckets off turnovers that allowed Monroe CC to cruise down the stretch.

NOTES: Kelly Jr. would finish with 11 of Monroe’s 41 rebounds to go along with 17 points. … Averi Parker scored 12 of his team-high 16 points in the final period while Wright finished with 9 points and four assists. … Jamestown CC finished the night 6 of 22 from 3-point range while the Tribunes were 6 of 19. … The game was part of #StandingTallForCody, an organ-donation awareness campaign spearheaded by Jamestown CC and The Post-Journal to assist sportswriter Cody Crandall, who suffered viral heart failure last August and has been a patient at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester since mid-November.

MONROE CC (76)

Cue 0-6 0-0 0, West 5-10 2-3 13, Kelly Jr. 8-11 1-2 17, Wilson 0-2 1-4 1, Jackson 1-3 0-2 2, Brandon 9-13 5-6 28, OBrown 0-5 2-4 2, Mangelluzzi 1-2 0-0 2, RBrown 2-2 2-2 6, Nelson 1-3 3-3 5. Totals 27-57 16-26 76.

JAMESTOWN CC (57)

Williams 3-6 0-0 7, Howard 2-6 2-2 6, Wright 4-13 0-0 9, Robson 1-9 1-2 4, Cosby 5-13 3-3 13, Kiadii 1-4 0-0 2, Parker 6-12 1-3 16, Davidson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-63 7-10 57.

Halftime–Jamestown CC 33, Monroe CC 29. 3-point goals–Jamestown CC 6-22 (Williams 1-2, Wright 1-5, Robson 1-8, Kiadii 0-1, Parker 3-6), Monroe CC 6-19 (Cue 0-4, West 1-5, Jackson 0-1, Brandon 5-8, Mangelluzzi 0-1). Fouled Out–Williams. Rebounds–Jamestown CC 26 (Cosby 13), Monroe CC 41 (Kelly Jr. 11). Assists–Jamestown CC 12 (Wright 4), Monroe CC 10 (Cue 4). Total Fouls– Jamestown CC 20, Monroe CC 13.