The Barton Community College women's basketball team picked up their first win of the season by finding their offense behind 50% shooting Wednesday evening at the Barton Gym in delivering a 102-53 blow to the reserve squad from Sterling College.
The 1-1 Lady Cougars get their first taste of life on the road this weekend as Barton plays a pair of contests in the Blue Dragon Classic at the Hutchinson Sports Arena. The Lady Cougars play at 1:30 p.m. in both games, taking on Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College (1-2) on Friday with Saturday's opponent being the 17th ranked Cougars of Western Nebraska Community College (2-0).
Richelle Turney made her sophomore campaign debut scoring a team high twenty-one points on the night, draining a trey to get the contest's scoring underway. Sterling hung around early until Queen Ulabo began a 6-0 spurt to open up the lead to nine late in the frame, increasing out to thirteen with thirty-three seconds in the quarter.
Turney's zipped pass through the lane for a Kolby Davis layup began an 11-0 run at the second frame's midway point then later capped the stretch knocking down her second of a trio of three-pointers in the game.
Ivana Branzovski, who tied Turney for team high three-ball honors, knocked down her first in a personal five-point run late in the half as the Cougars would roll to the locker room with a twenty point margin.
The margin hovered around that mark until 5:16 left in the quarter as 7-0 run seemed to ignite the Lady Cougars. Hannah Valentine's fast break layup and pair of free throws bookended Ulabo's old fashioned three-point conversion pushing the score to 62-36 with 4:34 left.
Vanessa Oduah's three-pointer with 2:11 left in the frame began a 13-0 stretch panning into the final quarter as Ulabo's jumper ballooned the margin comfort gap to forty.
Putting twenty-eight points on the scoreboard in the third to just fourteen for the Warriors, more of the same continued as Barton would tack on twenty-seven more points in the final ten minutes as Sterling managed just twelve.
Branzovski's triple with 1:26 left pushed the Cougars' over the century mark with Katelynn Sanger's 1-of-2 trip to the line put a cap on Barton's scoring and a game high fifty-two point margin with fifty-nine seconds on the clock.
Joining Turney in double figures were three other Cougars including Valentine leading a fifty-eight point bench production in scoring sixteen points in just fourteen minutes of court time. Ulabo nearly had a point-per-minute in scoring fourteen while Branzovski's 3-of-4 beyond the arc contributed eleven.
Tiffany Dortland and Bryn Willt led the rebound totals with six each in scoring nine and eight points respectively.
Lauren Carmack, who drained the last of her 5-of-10 shooting beyond the arc for the game's final points, led all scorers with twenty-six points while Moriah Goracke took home game high rebound honors with twelve, five coming on the offensive glass.
Barton's Turney and the Warriors' Kaylie Zimmerman tied for game high assist honors, each distributing four dimes, with Zimmerman just missing double figures for Sterling in ringing up nine points.