Tough night for Barton women’s basketball team

Tough night for Barton women's basketball team
It was not a good night for the Barton County Community College women's basketball team Tuesday night at the Barton County Gym. The night saw the Cougars blow a 16-point 2nd half lead as well as lose their starting point guard for at least a month. Barton County fell to 3-2 on the season with a 59-53 setback to perennial Jayhawk East power Cowley County. Cowley is now 6-0 for the season. The Cougars will try to return to their winning ways Thursday as they start play in the Colby Ambassador Classic.

Highlights
Things were going along nicely for the Cougars for most of the contest. Barton took an early lead in the contest and held that lead for nearly the entire basketball game. With the Cougars trailing 16-14, Barton went on an 8-0 midway through the opening half to take a lead they would not give up until very late. Barton pushed the lead to as high as 11 in the opening half before settling for a 31-22 lead at the intermission.

Starting point guard Mayowa Onikute went down at the 4:08 mark of the opening after grabbing an offensive rebound, then coming down on a Cowley player and eventually banging off the floor. Onikute suffered a serious concussion and will probably miss the remainder of the pre-conference slate. Onikute will be a tough loss for Barton as she led the team in steals and was 2nd in scoring and assists.

The Cougars continued their assault on the Tigers during the early phases of the 2nd half. The Cougar lead grew to 12, 14 and eventually 16 points with Barton grabbing a 43-27 lead with 12:35 to play following a Vivian Ewalefo basket. Barton held a double-digit lead until around the 7-minute mark when Cougars really went cold from the floor. Barton led 48-38 after an Ewalefo free throw at the 7:40 mark. Cowley cut that single digits with 6:40 to play, as Barton would go nearly 3 minutes without a hoop. Barton finally pushed the lead to 50-45 with 4:19 still to play in the game, but would not score again for nearly 4 more minutes as Cowley finally overtook the Cougars.

Cowley reeled off 13 straight points to take a 58-50 lead with less than 30 seconds to play. Brandi Harris finally broke the Cougars drought when she hit a 3-pointer with 21 seconds left, but it was too little, too late for the Cougars at that point.

Harris paced the Cougars with 14 points followed by Ewalefo with 9. The Cougars did force their foes into a 30-turnover game once again, as Cowley had exactly 30 turnovers. But Barton committed 23 of its own and after holding a rebounding advantage of nearly 10 most of the game (Barton led 24-14 at halftime in rebounds), the Cougars ended up getting out-boarded 41-40. Megan Schoenfeld led 4 Cowley players in double figures with 16.

Stats
Full box scores and stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Thurs., Nov. 18 – v. Bethany JV, 2 pm (Ambassador Classic at Colby's Community Building)
Fri., Nov. 19 – v. Independence, 2 pm (Ambassador Classic at Colby's Community Building)
Sat., Nov. 20 – v. Miles (Mont), 2 pm (Ambassador Classic at Colby's Community Building)