The Barton Community College volleyball team sent their sophomores out in style Friday evening at the Barton Gym sweeping Garden City Community College 25-13, 25-10, and 25-21 in the regular season finale.
The Cougars fifth straight win capping the regular season leaves Barton tied for second place in the Jayhawk Conference standings at 13-3 while improving to 23-11 overall. Seventh place Garden City slides to 4-12 in league play and 7-28 overall.
Barton will have the third seed in the upcoming Region VI Tournament, dropping the tie-breaker to Colby Community College. The Cougars will host first round action on Tuesday evening in a 6:30 p.m. first serve versus sixth seeded Independence Community College (6-10, 11-20). First round winners will then head to southwest Kansas as top seeded Seward County earned hosting privileges for the Region's final four.
Behind an efficient .406 attacking percentage in the opening set, the Cougars broke it open midway through the frame rattling off five straight points in an 8-1 spurt.
The sizzling offense ignited hotter in the second set as Barton combined for a .435 percentage scoring thirteen of the final fifteen points putting Garden City on the brink of a short night.
In the third set the Cougars took a while to get rolling, falling behind 15-13 before stringing together three straight gaining the lead for the final time 17-15. Barton held off any Garden City attempt for a comeback keeping the Broncbusters from stringing together multiple points down the stretch to complete the match and season series sweep.
Agnieska Paskevic and Rayanne de Oliveira went out with a bang on Sophomore Night as each recorded double-doubles. Paskevic tallied up her team leading eighteenth double-double of the season recording 38 assists and 16 digs. Oliveira notched her second double-double recording 13 tomahawk kills along with 12 digs and five blocks. Freshman Victoria O'Keefe's nine kills on thirteen swings for a .692 attack led Barton to a match overall .398 hitting percentage with just eight errors. Reigning conference and national defensive player of the week Karina de Oliveira chalked up twenty-three digs to lead the backline.
Program Record Book Current Standings
Migle Mazurkeviciute: 13th Career Kills; 6th Career Digs
Rayanne de Oliveira: 15th Career Solo Blocks; 8th Career Assisted Blocks; 7th Career Total Blocks
Karina de Oliveira: 2nd Single Season Digs; 2nd Career Digs
Agnieska Paskevic: 14th Single Season Assists; 12th Career Assists