The Barton Community College women's basketball team got off to a hot first half start Saturday in never trailing in holding on down the stretch for a 78-61 victory over Coffeyville Community College in the Region VI Quarterfinals held at Dodge City's United Wireless Arena.
Snapping a three game post-season losing streak against Coffeyville, 6th seeded Barton moves into the semifinals for the second straight year, improving to 17-15 on the season while ending the third seed Red Ravens' season at 25-7.
Barton will next play at 1:00 p.m. on Monday against 2nd seeded Hutchinson Community College as the 9th ranked Blue Dragons took care of 7th seeded Cowley College 69-48.
The Cougars' hot start led to a 10-2 advantage, getting five points each from Queen Ulabo and Vanessa Oduah including a three-pointer from each as well. Coffeyville creeped back to within four but behind 53.3% first frame shooting including triples from Tiffany Dortland and Richelle Turney the Cougars stayed out front 20-16 after the first ten minutes.
Barton's shooting continued to rise in the second quarter while Coffeyville continued to go south with Barton adding twelve to their lead in enjoying a 42-26 advantage into the locker room. The big defining stretch came on an 11-0 run early in the period, beginning with an Oduah triple followed by a Hannah Valentine old fashioned three-point play and Barton's sixth triple of the half coming on Turney's deep trey as D'Shonda Hunt's pair of free throws capping the spurt for a 33-18 Barton lead.
Each team made just four field goals each in the third period and even though Barton cooled down to just 33.3% shooting, it was good enough to maintain its margin to the fourth.
Coffeyville upped the pressure in the fourth with the season on the line, cutting the deficit into single digits for the first time since the second quarter. Barton responded with a 5-0 swing, getting a pair of Ulabo free throws before Turney converted an And-1 pushing the gap out to 67-55 with 3:30 to play. Kolby Davis and Dortand each made 4-of-4 trips to the line a minute later putting the icing on the game for a 75-61 lead with seventy seconds remaining.
Ulabo posted her third straight double-double to lead Barton with seventeen points and fifteen rebounds. Odauh also posted a double-double, her XX of the season in scoring twelve with ten rebounds to go along with a team high five assists and three steals. Having battled sickness this past week, Turney returned to the floor for twenty-three minutes off the bench to knock down a perfect three shots from beyond the arc and 6-of-7 from the field for a team second best sixteen points. Davis rounded out the double-digit scoring behind a nearly perfect 9-of-10 effort from the charity stripe for eleven points.
Just two Red Ravens reached double digits as Ania Markowska and Julia Calafell each scored thirteen.
Barton finished 48.9% from the field to the Red Ravens' 34.9% shooting with Barton controlling the boards on a plus-13 margin while sinking 25-of-35 (71.4%) from the free throw line for a thirteen point scoring edge.