On a night when the offenses were as cold as the weather, a scoring lull to start the second half was particularly devastating for Allen Community College.
The Red Devils went without a field goal for more than 10 minutes as visiting Northern Oklahoma College-Enid turned a six-point deficit into a 43-27 lead.
Allen responded with renewed vigor on the defensive end, but could draw no closer than four points down the stretch in a 65-59 loss.
The Red Devils didn’t have much time to fret about the setback. They were back in action Wednesday evening to host another powerhouse in North Central Missouri College, the nation’s third-ranked NJCAA-Division II school. (Results from Wednesday were unavailable by press time.)
Allen’s Malachi Schilreff scored with just under 4 minutes left in the first half to give the Red Devils a 26-21 advantage. Neither team scored again until Henry Ray-Young added a free throw to extend Allen’s lead to 27-21.
It looked all the world like neither team was going to score again until Northern Oklahoma turned a late ACC turnover into a buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the break from Oryne Stewart to make it 27-24.
The Jets were locked in at both ends of the court to start the second half, rattling off a 7-0 run to start the stanza within 2 ½ minutes. Preston Murphy’s driving layup extended the lead to 10, 37-27.
Schilreff’s layup at the 13:34 mark of the second half ended what had been a 22-0 Northern Oklahoma run.
Momentum slowly switched back in Allen’s favor from there. Javontae Costner drilled a 3-pointer before Mike Smith pinballed between Northern Oklahoma defenders to convert a nifty layup to cap a 9-2 ACC run.
The lead hovered around 10 points before the Red Devils’ Tymell Stevenson scored seven straight points on a 3-pointer, two free throws and an inside bucket, pulling Allen to within 53-49 with 3:07 left.
Northern Oklahoma’s Jordan England slammed the door from there, scoring eight of his game-high 22 in the final 2:55 to keep Allen at bay.
Allen’s Tyler Pinder drilled a 3-pointer and added a pair of free throws on the next possession to slice the gap to 60-54 in the last minute. Tyon Scott added a nifty slam and Schilreff connected from downtown, but by then it was too little, too late.
Schilreff paced Allen with 15 points, while Stevenson scored 13 with 12 rebounds. Pinder, coming off the bench in his first game in a Red Devil uniform after missing the first nine games due to injury, added 10 points and seven assists. Costner had four steals. 
The loss marked the second time the teams had played each other in less than two weeks, and marked a significant improvement for the Red Devils from the first matchup. In that one, Northern Oklahoma raced to a 40-22 lead at halftime and never looked back in a 90-62 romp.
“We’re going to be OK,” Allen head coach Patrick Nee said. “We’re struggling to score, and I didn’t think that would be a problem. Tyler will really help us.”
