Vanessa Oduah's three-pointer with 2.3 seconds left sent the Barton Community College women's basketball team into the Region VI Championship game as the Cougars erased a twenty-point deficit in knocking off 9th ranked Hutchinson Community College 58-57 in the semifinal round Monday afternoon at Dodge City's United Wireless Arena.
Ending a 23-game losing streak to Hutchinson improving to 18-15 on the year, the 6th seeded Cougars will make their first appearance in the region title game since 2008 with Barton taking the court Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. against top seeded Butler Community College. The Grizzlies knocked off 4th seeded and No. 18 ranked Seward County Community College 70-65 in the second semifinal matchup improving to 24-8. Hutchinson falls to 28-4 on the season to await a most-likely at-large bid for the NJCAA National Tournament.
Tied at 55 with forty-two seconds left, Barton began working the shot clock down until Abby Ogle's theft of Oduah leading to an uncontested layup suddenly put the Blue Dragons in the lead with nineteen ticks left. Following two fouls on Hutchinson to disrupt the Cougars' flow, the final inbound with six seconds found Oduah open on the right wing in front of the Barton bench for a step-in three pointer stopping the clock with 2.3 seconds. Hutchinson's Lauryn Mapusua got off a great half court look at the buzzer but the shot was three feet too high above the rim setting off a victorious Barton bench.
Trailing by twenty near the end of the second quarter and again early in the third period, Barton officially erased the deficit with 7:51 left in the final frame as consecutive Hannah Valentine and Queen Ulabo three-pointers put Barton in front 46-45. The first lead since an early 6-4 score, Barton would find themselves trailing again by five just three minutes later as the Blue Dragons knocked down their 9th three-pointer of the game capping a 5-0 run to go in front 53-48.
As Hutchinson suffered through a 31% second half shooting with the Barton defense making life a little harder for the Blue Dragon offense, in the lane jumpers by Turney and Vanessa Oduah on the Cougars' offensive end followed by another Ulabo triple regained the underdogs' lead at 55-53 with 2:02 remaining.
Mapusua secured Hutchinson's thirteenth offensive rebound of the game with 42 seconds left, with the sophomore calmly sinking a pair of charity tosses to tie it up at 55.
Playing without sophomore Kolby Davis due to illness, Oduah's fifteen points including the game winning trey led the Cougars including coming up with four steals and four rebounds. Turney and Tiffany Dortland, who knocked down consecutive three-pointers early in the third quarter to spark Barton's 25-point third quarter, each finished with eleven points on a combined 4-of-11 from beyond the arc. Ulabo finished just shy of her fourth straight double-double with eight points and nine rebounds.
Two Blue Dragons reached double-digit scoring as the duo of Makayla Vannett and Tor'e Alford had thirteen apiece in a combined 7-of-17 from long range. Ogle finished with nine points and team leading eight rebounds, five assists, and four steals while Brooklyn Betham added eight points and seven rebounds.
D'Shonda Hunt was the hot hand early, scoring the first two Cougar buckets with a Ulabo to Oduah back door cut giving Barton a 6-4 mid-first frame lead. Hutchinson then got hot sinking a pair of three-pointers in an 8-0 run before Turney's left wing triple with nine seconds left cut the Blue Dragon lead to 12-9.
Barton would not score a field goal in the second quarter, sinking six perfect free throw tosses, four from Valentine and a pair from Hunt. Hutchinson broke the game open on a 13-0 spurt with another eight-point stretch increasing the margin to 33-13 before Hunt closed out the first half scoring with the charity tosses.
Hutchinson opened the third quarter scoring to again match their twenty-point lead, but the Cougars rattled off twelve straight started with an Ulabo bucket followed by the two Dortland treys and consecutive jumpers by Turney cutting the gap to 35-27 with 6:27 remaining. Another 8-0 run sliced the deficit even further to just one with Abby Ogle's three ball keeping Hutchinson out front.
Barton outscored Hutchinson 25-11 in the third and 15-9 in the fourth quarter behind 62.5% second half shooting while Hutchinson shot just under 30%.