The Barton Community College women's basketball team led from start to finish Saturday afternoon, rolling out to an 18-point lead before holding on for a 52-41 victory over Cloud County Community College snapping its' four game losing streak in Concordia, KS.
Leading by one early in the opening stanza, the Cougars put together a 9-0 stretch in building up a 15-6 lead and never looked back securing the season sweep over Cloud County.
The second straight road victory improves Barton's conference mark to 10-8 and overall record to 13-11 while the T-Birds fall to 7-10 in league play and 11-13 on the year.
The Cougars will return home Wednesday night for a 5:30 p.m. tip in welcoming Pratt Community College to the Barton Gym.
Jenny Nkem Womsi led seven different Cougars in the scoring column while securing her 10th double-double of the season adding a pair of game highs 17 points and 10 rebounds. Brennan Kirchhoff rounded the double-figure scoring for the Cougars with 14 points behind 4-of-6 shooting from the field. Morgan Meyers dished out a team high four assists while adding nine points in her 34 minutes of action.
Cloud County's Rori Cox was the lone T-Bird to reach double-figures leading the way with 12 points while Te araroa Sopoaga pulled down a team high seven rebounds.
RECAP
A banked in Kirchhoff splash from outside sat the tone early as the Cougars stifling defense surrendered just one T-Bird bucket over the opening 6:44. Barton manufactured a 12-2 lead with 3:51 to play in the opening stanza during a 9-0 run getting buckets by Acorionna Lard, Kirchhoff, Meyers and Womsi And-1. Outscored by one over the final 3:16, the Cougars maintained a 15-6 lead at the quarters end.
The script would remain the same despite Cloud scoring the opening bucket of the second quarter as a 6-0 Barton run powered by four Womsi points and another pair by Kirchhoff had the Cougars in front 21-8. Barton maintained the momentum over the final five minutes outscoring Cloud County 6-4 holding the T-Birds to just 12 first half points tying their season low of points allowed in an opening half all season.
Ensuing a pair of Sopoaga free throws for the T-Birds to open the third, Barton would grab its' largest lead of 18 at 32-14 behind a Mikayla Hall jumper and Kirchhoff trifecta capping a 5-0 run. Offense would be hard to come by over the next three minutes until a Cruz basket and free throw gave Cloud County their first basket of the quarter with 5:35 to play. Back-and-forth over the final four minutes would have the T-Birds outscoring the Cougars 15-12 in the quarter with the Cougars lead trimmed to 39-27 heading into the fourth.
Trading the first four baskets to start the fourth, Barton would gain a bit more separation as a pair of Womsi tosses and Meyers layup pushed the advantage back out to 16 with 6:09 to play. Leading by 13 with 1:48 to play Cloud County would push as close as 10 with three straight points until a 1-of-2 trip at the line with 57-ticks left by Meyers sealed any hopes of a T-Bird comeback with the Cougars leaving Concordia with their first victory since 2015.