Barton women's soccer tunes-up for playoffs with 7-1 blowout at KCK

The Barton Community College women's soccer team closed out the regular season today in Kansas City with a 7-1 victory at Kansas City Kansas Community College.  The Lady Cougars led by two at the break then scored three goals in the first five minutes of the second half to cruise for a fifth straight victory in closing out the regular season.  Barton finishes tied for fourth place at 7-4 and 8-6 overall while KCK finishes the season at 2-8-1 and 4-10-1.  Next up for the Lady Cougars is a Saturday trip to Dodge City for first round Region VI playoffs at Dodge City Community College.  The Lady Conquistadors finished the regular season at 10-4 tying Barton for fourth place in the conference but get the No. 4 seed virtue of their 2-1 victory over Barton on September 26 in Dodge City. 

Dominique Milsap scored her second collegiate goal getting Barton on the scoreboard with 12:25 left to play in first half action putting away Denise Cuenca's fifth assist of season.  Cuenca then gave Barton the two goal cushion nine minutes later scoring unassisted for her fifth goal of her freshman season.

It only took the Lady Cougars thirty-six seconds into the second half to get the first of three goals in the course of four minutes.   Sophomore midfielder Maria Munoz was the first to pull the trigger beating the KCK goalkeeper one-on-one finishing off Jennifer Mendez' third assist of the season.   Three minutes later Mendez rattled the nets for her thirteenth goal of the season on Cuenca's second assist of the game.   Less than a minute ticked off the clock before Mendez would strike again delivering fellow freshman Natalie Espino-Kennedy's fifth assist of the year.

Unlucky in the past few games of finding the net, Samantha Thompson became the 12th Lady Cougar to score this year finally breaking through for her first collegiate goal scoring unassisted with 17:50 left to play. 

Barton's bid to get its second straight shutout went by the wayside as the Blue Devils broke up the goose egg with 13:30 play.

Sophomore Sydne Harpenau became the thirteenth on the team this season to get an assist as freshman Brooke Russell connected for her fourth goal heading in Harpenau's corner kick to the upper 90 with 4:45 to play.

Barton will open Region VI play at Dodge City with the winner advancing to most likely play top seeded and No. 6 nationally ranked Butler Community College November 5 at Topeka's Hummer Park in Region VI semifinal action.