Today we continue the countdown of the Top 10 sports stories of the 2016-2017 school year at Central College with number nine.

On January fourth, Colby Taylor became the highest scoring player in Central College men’s basketball history, breaking a 37-year-old record.

Jeff Verhoef scored 1,575 points in the late 1970’s, and Taylor finished his career this winter with 1,856.

If you’d told Dutch coach Craig Douwma five years ago that the 6’6” forward from Creston would become the school’s scoring standard bearer, it might have been a tough sell. Douwma wasn’t even sure when he’d get on the court.

“I really thought he was going to be a year or two-year JV guy. I really did. I just didn’t know if he was physically ready. The makeup of that first team, we searched for a while, but he was backing up (Matt) Greenfield and he wasn’t getting a lot of minutes behind the MVP of the league. We tried different guys in that three spot, and we made the change at Christmas time in Puerto Rico where we put him at the three. That was a great little puzzle piece and it really worked for that team and we took off from that point forward.”

Taylor was named the Iowa Conference newcomer of the year during his freshman campaign, and in both his junior and senior seasons, he earned all-IIAC and all-West Region honors.

He led Central to a 16-12 overall record this winter and to the finals of the Iowa Conference tournament.

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