A frigid second half shooting and a late surge sent the Barton Community College women's basketball team to a Monday night loss at the Barton Gym as Colby Community College pulled out a 67-62 victory.
Despite the two game skid, the Cougars stay in a third place tie of the Jayhawk West at 9-8 and 13-13 on the season while Colby climbs closer to the top four at 8-9 and 17-9 overall.
A two-game road stretch is ahead for the Cougars, beginning with a 6:30 p.m. tip Wednesday at Northwest Kansas Technical College before Saturday's trip to Liberal in taking on 19th ranked Seward County Community College.
Unlike previous games, Barton was the early aggressor in jumping out to a fifteen point advantage following D'Shonda Hunt's conversion of an old fashioned three point play and a 17-2 advantage. Four straight by Vanessa Oduah pushed the margin back to fifteen as Barton would have the edge 25-11 at the end of the frame.
Colby started its climb with nine straight to open up second quarter action, creeping to within four twice, with Richelle Turney halting the charge each time.
Barton led 38-33 at the halftime break with little fireworks taking place in the third frame with seventeen combined points as Colby cut the gap to just two headed into the final ten minutes.
As Barton would continue to see their shooting percentage drop dramatically, the Trojans grabbed their first lead with 5:15 remaining, answered twelve seconds later by a 1-of-2 trip to the line by Kolby Davis to tie the game for the final time.
Colby scored the next six points in the next two minutes to surge ahead by six until Oduah offensive rebound put back closed it to 57-51 with 3:01 remaining. Two Trojan free throws would be the lone points lighting the scoreboard the next two-plus minutes with Hunt's three-point play with 39 seconds giving Barton life down three. Following a pair of trips to the free throw stripe for each team, Tiffany Dortland's pure silk from twenty-five feet out gave Barton a chance down one with 15 seconds remaining but two Trojan charity tosses followed by a desperation three in the waning seconds came up empty. Colby put the final two cherries on top with .3 seconds left for the victory.
Barton shot 41.9% in the first half but a frigid 21.4% shooting in second half for just six made baskets tallied just a 32.2% overall from the floor despite Colby not much better at a 38.1% clip but accounting for five more buckets.
Hunt led all scorers on the night with a career best twenty-one points, reaching double figures for the fourth straight game, while hauling down ten rebounds in posting her sixth double-double of the year. Turney added fourteen with Oduah contributing twelve to go along with seven rebounds, three steals, and a career high eight assists.
Four Trojan starters hit double figures, led by Aerihna Afoa and Brittanie Brickhouse thirteen points each followed by eleven points each from Kiara Knight and Nyrobi Pillers. Afiya Vincent hauled down a game high thirteen rebounds to lead a Colby 43-41 edge on the glass.