The Barton Community College women's basketball team made it two wins in a row by earning a Friday afternoon 75-67 victory over Northeastern Oklahoma A&M in the Atrium Classic.
Barton improves to 2-1 on the early seasonwith NEO slipping to 1-4. The Lady Cougars return to the Hutchinson Sports Arena on Saturday for their biggest test so far of the season in taking on Western Nebraska Community College (2-1). The 17th ranked Cougars of the north will be looking to get back into the win column after being outscored by eleven in the final quarter later in the day to drop a 64-59 decision to host and 9th ranked Hutchinson Community College.
Shooting just 26.7% in the opening ten minutes, the Lady Cougars found nearly half of their points from the charity stripe by draining 8-of-11.
Bryn Willt's left hand runner in the lane cracked Barton's second frame scoring drought with 6:32 left, tying the contest at 19 after NEO drained a three pointer thirty seconds earlier.
Trailing by three after another NEO triple, the Cougars launched a 6-0 run beginning with KayCee Miller's right wing trey followed by Kolby Davis' 1-2 trip to line and runner in the lane put Barton up 25-22 with 5:19 left.
The game seesawed back and forth as NEO's old-fashioned three-point play was countered by a pair of Hannah Valentine free throws and Tiffany Dortland's runner.
Following NEO's 4th trey of half, Ulabo's hoop-n-harm pushed the margin to four with two minutes left in the half as the Cougars went on a 7-2 run highlighted by Dortland's thread of the needle to Davis' back-door cut.
Leading 38-32 at the break, the Cougars began to roll in the third quarter, outscoring the Norseman by nine behind 58% shooting. Richelle Turney did most of the damage in scoring thirteen points making four shots from the field and 5-of-6 from the stripe. The frame was capped by a 6-0 spurt on D'Shonda Hunt and Turney back door cuts and a key defensive steal by Miller leading to a Davis transition hoop pushing the margin out to 62-47.
A mini five point NEO run cut the difference down to nine midway through the final quarter but Barton blew it open in the next two minutes on an 11-0 run for a twenty point lead with 3:15 to play. The Norseman made another late run, getting the aide of three Barton missed shots and two turnovers, to close out the final minutes scoring the game's final twelve points.
Turney's career high twenty-six points led all scorers in the contest with Davis and Hunt adding fourteen and eleven respectively. Point guard Vanessa Oduah had the best all-around game from the freshman point guard in flirting with a double-double by leading the squad with eleven rebounds with nine points and dishing out six dimes. Ulabo finished with just four points on the off-shooting afternoon but collected four of her ten rebounds on the offensive glass. Like Oduah, Hunt came up shy of a double-double with nine rebounds in helping Barton to a fourteen rebound advantage.
Kiarra Brooks led the Norseman with sixteen points with Koreea Kirksey helping NEO to a thirteen point bench production advantage by dropping in fourteen points. Ivanna Murillo added twelve points in leading the team with seven rebounds.