The Barton Community College volleyball team split its four-pack of weekend games at the Cowley Invitational held in Arkansas City, Kansas.
The results leave Barton at 12-8 on the season as the third place Cougars (3-2) return to conference play on Wednesday in a 6:30 p.m. first serve at fifth place Garden City Community College (3-3, 5-18).
Barton opened up play on Friday morning splitting the first two sets with Northeastern Oklahoma A&M 25-16 and 20-25 before taking the match lead with a 25-20 score. The Norseman fought back to even the match with a 25-17 victory but the Cougars recovered to lead 13-8 in the final fifth set before collapsing down the stretch as NEO stormed back to score seven unanswered to win 15-13. Rayanne de Oliveira matched a career high seventeen kills on a .464 attack with Agnieska Paskevic keying the offense with forty-seven assists while Karina de Oliveira anchored the back line with a weekend high thirty-five digs.
Game two on Friday didn't last long as Barton put away Central Community College-Columbus in straight sets 25-15, 25-22, and 25-15. R. Oliveira again hit in double-digits with thirteen kills on a .391 attack percentage while put up the long arms of the net law to the tune of five solo and one assisted block. Paskevic keyed a weekend high .317 attack offense with thirty-nine assists to compliment fifteen digs.
The Cougars were up bright and early Saturday morning, beating the hotel breakfast bar to make an 8:00 a.m. tangle with Metropolitan Community College-Longview. Barton would get a three set sweep of the Wolves but it would come at a price in a grueling 25-20, 28-26, and 25-22 victory. Victoria O'Keefe, who recorded eleven kills in Friday's win over NEO, paced three Cougars in double digit kills with thirteen on a .303 attack as Migle Mazurkeviciute, who also had a solid game against NEO with twelve kills, posted another twelve with R. Oliveira close behind with eleven.
Weekend action wrapped up a match later as Barton rolled over host Cowley College 25-15 in the first set. As the short-handed Cougars began to lose steam from a busy week on the road, the Division II No. 11 ranked Tigers began to capitalize in taking the next three sets 25-22, 25-16, and 25-20. Mazurkevicute led four Cougars in double digit kills with twelve while R. Oliveira, O'Keefe, and Mackenzie Pease each finished with ten.
R. Oliveira recorded double digit kills in each of the four matches, extending the sophomore's streak to five, while contributing ten solo blocks to go along with four assisted blocks.
Mazurkevicute just missed having a double-double performance in each of the matches but recorded three over the weekend for eleven of the Cougars twenty matches of the year.
Posting two double-doubles in the two days, O'Keefe tallies four on the freshman's season while Paskevic added another two to bring the sophomore's total to nine. Paskevic also put up the wall of denial for seven solo blocks, to go along with, four assisted blocks.