Cougar women impressive in opening weekend of season

Cougar women impressive in opening weekend of season
It was a weekend to remember at the Barton County Community College Gym for a pair of reasons. First was the fact that the Barton County women's basketball team opened their 2004-05 campaign with a pair of wins over two ranked foes at the Pizza Hut Classic. Second, it marked career collegiate coaching wins No. 1 and 2 for new Cougar coach Lane Lord. The Cougars defeated No. 16 Iowa Western the opening night by an 83-78 score then came back with an easy win over Division II No. 9 Des Moines Area (Iowa), 74-54.

Highlights
The wins for the Cougars showed signs Barton is heading in the right direction in its quest to return to prominence. The Cougars have posted losing season the past three years after having just 2 other losing seasons in it's 25 previous years. It also marked the initial wins for Coach Lord at the collegiate level. The highly successful high school coach at Wichita Heights has a pair of 6A state titles under his belt but this was his inaugural games at the collegiate level.

Friday night, the Cougars picked up the win with relentless defensive and 94-foot pressure. Barton forced the No. 16 Reivers into 32 turnovers during the contest. That allowed the Cougars to pick up the win despite shooting a lower percentage in every aspect as well as getting out-rebounded by the taller Reivers. The Cougars scored 28 points off turnovers. Barton led nearly the entire contest. Iowa Central did jump out to an early lead at 16-11. Barton battled back to tie the contest at 16-all when Iowa Western Coach Brett Meckley was hit with a pair of technical fouls and removed from the bench.

Following the Meckley ejection, the Cougars went on a 7-0 run to take a 23-16 lead and eventually pushed that lead to as much as 10 points before Iowa Western rallied to even the score at 43-all at the half. The Cougars slowly built their lead up in the 2nd half, never trailing in the half, to double digits again, leading 75-64 with just less than 6 minutes to play in the contest. But Iowa Western rallied once more, cutting the Barton lead to 76-75 at the 2:56 mark. That is when Barton's Mayowa Onikute made perhaps the biggest basket of the game, knocking down a 3-pointer with 2:30 to play for a 79-75 lead. Brandi Harris knocked down a jumper in the lane with 1:10 to play to give Barton an 81-78 lead then added a pair of free throws in the final minute to secure the win for the Cougars. Six Barton players reached double figures, led by Sunshine Uli with 13 points and 9 rebounds.

Barton had a little easier time the 2nd night, jumping out to a 33-13 lead on the Bears in the game's 1st 12 minutes and never looked back. The closest the Bear would get the remainder of the way would be 13 points. Once again it was the relentless pressure of the as the Cougars forced the Bears into 38 turnover and scored 44 points off those turnover – just 10 points shy of Des Moines point total for the game.

Stats
Full box scores and stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Fri., Nov. 12 – v. No. 18 Moberly (Mo), 7:30 pm (Pepsi Classic at Barton County)
Sat., Nov. 13 – v. No. 17 Northeastern Oklahoma, 7:30 pm (Pepsi Classic at Barton County)