Third quarter dooms Barton women in road loss at Butler #GoBarton

Wednesday night was a trip to the Power Plant the Barton Community College women's team would soon forget as the Lady Cougars' halftime lead was a distant memory in getting outscored by nineteen in the final twenty minutes to suffer a 64-46 loss at Butler Community College. The second straight loss drops Barton to seventh place at 9-7 and 12-8 overall while Butler solidifies its fifth place standing at 10-6 and 13-6 on the year. Next up will be a Saturday trip to Liberal, Kansas, as Barton has a tough foe lined up on the schedule in second place and No. 12 ranked Seward County Community College (13-2, 17-2). Tip-off time at The Greenhouse slated for 6:00 p.m.

Picking up where she left off the last time the teams met, Mallory Miller buried her first of three treys in the opening half to get Barton on the board. The Eisenhower High School product was the hero back on November 18 in knocking down a deep corner trey with just .7 seconds left in Barton's 68-67 win. This time around, after opening the scoring with the long bomb, Miller scored seventeen of the Lady Cougars' thirty-two points for a 32-31 halftime lead.

Having trailed by four after the first ten minutes, Miller's personal five point run began second quarter action to flip the lead. Butler would regain the lead and following Miller's third three-pointer, would again regain the lead on their own triple. A Natasha Dolinsky bucket and Taylor Regan's seventh made shot beyond the arc on the year for the Albert freshman, to go along with a Miller And-1 opportunity gave Barton its largest lead of five with 5:16 to play. Butler closed the gap to one before the halftime horn outscoring Barton 6-2 in the final three minutes behind two of the Grizzlies three long range shots in the half.

A Fatou Seck Ndao inside bucket twenty seconds into third quarter play pushed the lead to three but it would be the final Barton field goal for the next thirteen plus minutes as Butler would outscore the Lady Cougars 20-4 in the quarter.

The Grizzlies added to their unanswered string of points with a field to begin fourth quarter play stretching the run to twenty straight points until a Madison Dirks free throw would halt the drought with 9:19 remaining. Dirks would later add two more free throws but it took Barton until a Jaylin Stapleton bucket crashing to the floor on a foul to score the first field goal in the thirteen minute span coming with 5:58 remaining.

In a forgetful half of basketball, the Lady Cougars shot just 8.3% in the third and just 15% in the final ten minutes to record their lowest shooting percentage and output to the season.

Miller's seventeen first half points was the lone Lady Cougar in double digits. Regan, who was named the conference player of the week on Tuesday, continued her assault on the glass hauling down a game high eleven points to go along with five points.

Ericka Mattingly chalked up a double-double nineteen points and ten rebounds to go along with five assists to lead the Butler stat sheet. Taylor Birch added eleven while Jalise Smallwood scored ten. Kyla Callins tied Mattignly for the rebound lead with ten helping the Grizzlies have a fifteen rebound advantage including grabbing fourteen on the offensive glass.

Other Game Notes:

• Barton's loss at the Power Plant extends the winless streak in El Dorado to six. The last Lady Cougar win came in 2012 with a 55-39 victory
• Barton's lead in the overall series goes to 55-27 including 25-15 in El Dorado
• Season lows for Barton: points (46), field goals made (13), assists (7), field goal percentage (.241)
• Leading the conference at 73.7% from the stripe, Barton shot a season second worst 53.5 on 16-of-30 throws
• Gave up season high rebounds (50-tied), blocked shots (6)
• Mallory Miller was 3-of-8 from behind the arc, lowering her conference leading 3-pt shooting to 46.1% in slipping to 17th best in the nation
• Reigning conference player of the week Taylor Regan posted her third straight game of double digit rebounds. In the last three games she has 19, 18, and 11 to raise her conference third best average to 9.4 per game