Barton wins at No. 17 Hutch; keeps pace with West frontrunners

Barton wins at No. 17 Hutch; keeps pace with West frontrunners
The Barton County Community College women's basketball team is definitely making some noise in the Jayhawk West Conference. Loud enough noise that folks around the conference are no doubt hearing at this point. The latest of those noises came when the Cougars moved to a perfect 3-0 on the road in the conference with a win at No. 17 Hutchinson Saturday night. The Cougars led from the opening minutes and never trailed as they rolled to a 64-49 win over the ranked Blue Dragons on the Sports Arena floor. Barton moves to 14-5 overall and 4-1 in the West while Hutch falls to 16-2 and 4-2. The Cougars continue their battles with the top clubs in the conference as No. 7 Dodge City visits the Barton County Gym Wednesday.

Highlights
In what was perhaps the top defensive outing of the West season for Barton, the Cougars locked down a potent Hutchinson offensive – especially the perimeter offense of the Blue Dragons – in the easy win at the Sports Arena.

The Blue Dragons entered the contest hitting more than 7 3-pointers a game and just better than 38 percent from the behind the arc. But the Cougars would not let Hutchinson get a good look from 3. During the opening 20 minutes of action, Barton limited the Blue Dragons to 0-of-8 on 3-pointers as Barton built a 32-20 lead. For the game, Hutch hit just 2-of-17 treys for a meager 12 percent and only 16-of-49 from the floor for 33 percent – far below the 47 percent average for the Blue Dragons.

Barton didn't take long to let its defensive presence be known. With the contest tied at 2-all just more than 2 minutes into the contest, the Cougars went into lockdown. Hutchinson went more than 7 minutes without a point and was outscored 20-7 over a 10-minute stretch as Barton built a 22-9 lead on the Blue Dragons. Barton held that double-digit for the remainder of half and took a 32-20 lead to intermission.

Barton quickly pushed that lead to 15 points in the 2nd half before the Blue Dragons were finally able to get the score into single digits at 41-33 with just more than 10 minutes to play in the contest. The Blue Dragons eventually trimmed the Barton lead to 55-49 with 2:41 left to play. But the Cougars showed they are growing up by responding to the Hutch rally with a 9-0 run to end the contest. On the next four possessions for Hutch after trimming the lead to 6, the Blue Dragons missed a 3-pointer and had 3 straight turnovers. That let Barton push the lead to 62-49 with just one minute to play.

Vivian Ewalefo continued her high level of play in the West, putting up 20 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. Brandi Harris added 11 points and Brittany Ridley scored 10, including some clutch free throws down the stretch. Ridley entered the contest making just 1-of-6 free throws for the season. But against the Blue Dragons she hit 7-of-8 charity tosses – all in the final 3:40 of the game to seal the win. Ridley added 7 assists as well. Hutch was paced by Almeli da Silava with 18.

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

Next
Wed., Jan. 25 – v No. 7 Dodge City, 5:30 pm (Jayhawk West contest at the Barton County Gym)