A valiant short-handed effort came up shy Saturday at The Greenhouse as the Barton Community College women's basketball team couldn't muster enough offense with the 19th ranked Seward County Community College Lady Saints pulling away in the final quarter for a 53-44 victory.
Despite the second hard fought loss to Seward County on the season, Barton stays in a third place tie of the Jayhawk West at 10-9 and 14-14 overall while the Saints stay tied upon the conference top spot at 17-2 with their third straight victory improving to 22-5 on the season.
Wrapping up the road portion of the slate, Barton will return home for the final two games of the regular season beginning with Wednesday's Hall of Fame Night with a 5:30 p.m. tip against 6th ranked and West co-leader Hutchinson Community College. The Cougars will then wrap up the week on Saturday with Sophomore Night against Garden City Community College.
Richelle Turney furnished Barton's lone lead of the night scoring the contests opening bucket before Seward took the next ten for a 10-2 advantage. Playing without regular starter D'Shonda Hunt due to illness, the Cougars battled back late in the quarter as Bryn Willt and Tiffany Dortland sparked life off the bench rattling home back-to-back triples with Willt closing out the 8-2 run in dropping a jumper to beat the buzzer leaving Barton trailing 14-12.
A 9-0 stretch for Seward County in the opening six minutes of the second frame built their first double-digit lead of eleven. Barton countered with eight straight to close the gap to within three including five straight from Turney but the Saints held off the surge taking the final seven points grasping a 30-20 halftime lead.
Trailing by as many as thirteen the Cougars would not wave the white flag, going on a 14-2 spurt with Vanessa Oduah's three straight closing the gap to three before Dortland's jumper cut the deficit to just one. Barton wouldn't be able to get any closer as Seward County closed the final three minutes of the third scoring five of the final seven points taking a 40-36 lead into the fourth.
Turney's jumper to open the final frame was all Barton would get for the next three minutes with the Saints adding seven to the lead. Cold shooting down the stretch and just eight total points in the quarter would permit any hopes of an upset bid as the Cougars converted just four field goals in the final ten minutes.
The Saints' victory evens the series at forty-seven victories each as the teams combined for the lowest combined point total of the ninety-four meetings.
Both teams were porous in the defensive laden game, the Cougars shooting just 29.3% while Seward County could muster just a 27.5% in launching twenty-two more shots than Barton. Even in the turnover margin, the deciding difference came on the glass as the Saints grabbed twenty-three offensive rebounds leading to a multitude of second chance opportunities.
Turney led Barton with eleven points with Queen Ulabo getting her tenth point as time was winding down. Oduah and Hannah Valentine share rebound honors with eight each while Kolby Davis led the Cougars for the second straight game in assists by distributing three.
Tianna Johnson led Seward County with sixteen points with Karolina Szydlowska chipping in thirteen. Vanda Cuamba led a Saints' twelve rebound edge on the night by hauling down twelve with Johnson grabbing eight and leading the squad with three assists.