Barton opens season with a pair of wins in Pizza Hut Classic

Barton opens season with a pair of wins in Pizza Hut Classic
The Barton County Community College women's basketball team started the season in impressive fashion, winning a pair of games at the Pizza Hut Classic this past weekend at the Barton County Gym. Barton, ranked No. 8 in the NJCAA preseason poll, opened the season with a 59-53 win over No. 16 ranked Iowa Western. The Cougars then polished off the event with an 86-82 overtime win over one of the favorites in the Jayhawk East, Coffeyville. The wins move the Cougars to 2-0 and they will now have 10 days off before resuming action with a trip to Arkansas City to play the defending East champ Cowley County.

Highlights
Barton led by as many as 16 points Saturday night in the win over Coffeyville. Barton led nearly the entire way and built the lead to 56-40 on a basket by Rachelle Love with just more than 13 minutes to play. But that lead wouldn't last. The Red Ravens came battling back, whittling the lead to 9 just a couple minutes later. But Barton kept the double digit lead in tact and still led 70-58 with 5:52 to play in the contest. But Barton would run into offensive woes in the final 6 minutes. Barton scored just 5 more points and when the Red Ravens Keindra Scott made a pair of free throws with less than 1 second on the clock the game went into overtime at 75-all.

The Cougars lost All Classic selection Sunshine Misa-Uli in the final seconds of overtime to a foul out and played the OT period without her. Coffeyville took a 79-76 lead early in the overtime before Barton rallied themselves. Maya Onikute knocked down a 3-point to tie the game at 79-all starting a 7-1 run to give Barton an 84-80 lead they would hold onto for the win.

Uli led Barton with 16 points followed by Onikute with 14 and Love with 13. Onikute led Barton with 11 rebounds and 6 assists. It was her 1st double-double as a Cougar and tied her career-high in rebounds set last year in the Region VI tournament win over Cowley. Onikute was named the MVP of the Classic.

Friday night, the Cougars jumped to a 10-0 lead and never trailed. The Cougars pushed that lead to 23-8 with 11 minutes left in the opening half, but Iowa Western would battle back, cutting the lead to 34-28 by intermission. In the 2nd half, Barton would push the lead by to double digits and lead 50-36 with 10 minutes to play. But, like the opening half, the Reivers would rally, getting the score to 56-53 with still 2:42 to play. That would be as close as Iowa Western would get. In fact, Barton didn't allow an Iowa Western hoop the rest of the way as Barton held on for the season opening win.

Onikute led the way for Barton, collecting 19 points and grabbing 6 rebounds. She was joined in double figures by Uli with 13 points. Uli also had 8 rebounds to lead the Cougars in the win.

Stats
Complete stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Wed., Nov. 15 – at Cowley, 7 pm (non conference game at Arkansas City)