After a strong start, the Allen Community College Red Devils held on as they picked up their second Jayhawk Conference victory in as many weeks with a win over Labette County Community College Saturday.

A strong second quarter made all the difference as the Allen Community College Red Devils remain undefeated in Jayhawk Conference play with Saturday’s 61-50 victory over Labette.

After trailing by a point at the end of the first quarter, the Red Devils settled in for a 21-9 run to take control by the second quarter. They road that 12- point cushion into the final whistle of their first home contest of 2026.

Freshman guard Karizma Johnson had a team-leading 12 points while coming off the bench for Allen and tying sophomore starting forward Tawhirikura Doyle for second in assists with three each.

Johnson’s strong play in the second half allowed Allen to fend off any potential Labette rally.

“Karizma is doing well for us. She’s doing a lot of good things,” said Allen coach Leslie Crane, who college officials recognized at halftime during the men’s game for reaching 500 coaching wins.

“She plays point and the off-guard. She had to learn that because we’ve had some illnesses and injuries. She’s playing pretty well for us.”

Johnson was far from Allen’s only contributor Saturday. Sophomore forward Ja’Maya Garland had a breakout game with 10 points while coming off the bench. Sophomore Center Yolaine Luthi had a strong performance with 6 points and was just two rebounds short of tying freshman forward Joniya Lewis for first in rebounds with Lewis bringing down eight boards to Luthi’s six.

“We’re playing better. It’s taken a while to get us back where we need to be, but we’re playing better,” Crane said. “We saw that in the first semester as well. We were really gutting things out early. We were gutting it out defensively and with rebounding. I see that happening again, but we need to get as many wins as we can in this first round of conference play because the second round is always more difficult.”

With the win, the Red Devils improved to 10-5 and remain undefeated at 2-0 in the Jayhawk Conference. They put their undefeated streak on the line Wednesday while on the road against Fort Scott (1-9, 0-1), then host arch-rival Neosho County (12-7, 2-0) Saturday at ACC. Tip-off for Tuesday’s game is at 5:30 p.m.

Article and Photo Credit: Iola Register - Jimmy Potts