The Barton Community College volleyball team's season came to a close in Liberal, Kansas, as the Cougars split the first sets in Sunday's Region VI semifinals before falling to No. 6 ranked Seward County community College 25-23, 22-25, 25-14, and 25-14.
Having placed third in conference play and seeded fourth in the playoffs, Barton's season ends at 22-15 on the year while top seeded Seward County went on to sweep Hutchinson in the championship game to take 30-5 record to the NJCAA National Tournament November 15-17 in Hutchinson.
The Cougars went toe-to-toe with the Saints through the first two sets, battling back in the first before losing the last two points to go down a set. Barton trailed by three until a 4-0 surge put Barton up 21-20 but a trio of points reversed the scoreboard advantage. Following a Barton timeout, a Saints' error and a Kate Deterding attack through the wall tied it back up at 23-all but a Seward County timeout reversed the momentum resulting in the final two points in claiming the match lead.
Five straight by Barton opened up a 12-7 lead in the second as the Cougars fought off the Saints being able to tie it up. Sophomore Ariana Taylor gave the Cougars set point and following a pair of Saints points, teamed up with freshman Mackenzie Pease to block an attack in tying the match with the three point win.
Seward County rolled off three straight for a 15-6 lead and never looked back in rolling through the set for a 2-1 match lead.
As bad as the third set was for Barton, the fourth didn't start well either as a series of mistakes aided by a trio of questionable calls led to a 10-0 Saints run burying the Cougars in an 11-1 hole. The Cougars battled back with three straight but Seward County took 3-of-the-next-5 to widen the lead out to 18-7 in cruising to the match winner and ending Barton's season.
Rayanne de Oliveira led the Cougars attack with ten kills on the afternoon with Deterding and Taylor ending their Barton careers with eight and six kills respectively. Freshmen Migle Mazurkeviciute and Pease had seven and six kills as both were joined by Oliveira for two assisted blocks each. Agnieska Paskevic posted the freshman's sixth double-double of the season with nineteen assists and eleven digs while sophomore Kaila Harris put up fourteen assists to go along with eight digs. Freshman Karina de Oliveira led the back line with thirteen total digs.