Close has been an unfortunate theme for the Barton Community College women's basketball team this season as the Cougars' bid Saturday evening at the Barton Gym was another contest coming up short in a 69-63 loss to No. 12 Seward County Community College.
Slipping to 11-10 on the season, the Cougars do remain alone in third place of the Jayhawk West at 7-5 while Seward County remains unblemished in the league at 12-0 improving to 17-3 overall.
Barton's next contest will also be against a nationally ranked team as the Cougars make a Wednesday short drive to the Sports Arena taking on No. 10 Hutchinson Community College in a 5:30 p.m. tip-off.
A fast paced first quarter didn't produce a lot of scoring results as the teams each shot just 33% in drawing deadlocked at 15-all after ten minutes of play.
Seward County scored the first four points of the second frame with Barton hanging around until Vanessa Oduah drilled her third three-pointer of the first half to tie it up at 25 all with 5:13 left.
A pair of free throws put the Saints back out front twenty seconds later but the teams would remain scoreless in the next three minutes until Paige Talbott's pass to Richelle Turney knotted the contest back up. The Saints would surge back out to a four point lead, with a pair of Kolby Davis charity tosses cutting the deficit in half, before a jumper with eight seconds left in the half sent Seward County to a 33-29 halftime lead.
A 10-2 stretch for Seward County in the first three minutes of the the third frame built the game's largest lead of twelve. Barton countered with a 10-4 spurt to close the gap back to four with 3:38 left but the Saints held off the surge taking the next eight points pushing the margin back to twelve. Turney's trey and a jumper late in the quarter gave the Cougars some momentum heading to the fourth trailing by eight.
Closing to within four on Queen Ulabo's bucket in the paint with 8:26 left, Barton trailed by just two three minutes later on D'Shonda Hunt's offensive rebound putback. Ulabo's jumper again cut the deficit to two with 3:55 to play but it would be as close as Barton would come as Leilani Augmon's third triple of the game keyed a 7-0 surge giving the ranked Saints a nine point edge with just under two minutes to play.
Consecutive triples by Oduah and Turney made things interesting at 66-63 with 46 ticks on the clock as a 1-of-2 trip to the Saints line left Barton with a chance in the final twenty-four seconds. Securing sixteen offensive rebounds against the taller Saints, Barton came up with two on the glass in the ensuing possession but three attempts from deep wouldn't fall as a pair of late Augmon free throws provided the final margin.
Turney led all players on the scoresheet with twenty points, just missing a double-double with nine rebounds. Oduah's four long rang shots led to a sixteen point effort, tying Talbott for team high honors with three assists, while Hunt continued her torrid pace of late by adding fourteen points and ten rebounds for her second consecutive double-double and seventh out of the last eight games of scoring in double figures.
Augmon came off the bench to lead Seward County in scoring, scoring fifteen behind 3-of-4 beyond the arc with seven rebounds. Karolina Szydlowska put in a double-double thirteen points and ten rebounds in thirty-eight minutes of court time to share rebound honors with Vanda Cuamba. Gina Ballesteros connected on 4-of-6 behind the arc for a twelve point night while Tianna Johnson added eleven.