Cougars still rolling along, win over No. 24 Seward

Cougars still rolling along, win over No. 24 Seward
The Barton Community College women's basketball team is still rolling right along, recording its 8th straight win and back-to-back wins over ranked teams. The Cougars beat Jayhawk West co-leader and No. 24 ranked Seward County Wednesday night at the Barton Gym, 80-78, to retain a share of the West lead themselves. Barton won the contest with a pair of free throws from Tressie Todd with less than 1 second to play. The win comes on the heels of an 81-69 win over No. 10 Cloud County the previous contest. The Cougars are now 8-2 in the West and tied with Cloud and Hutchinson atop the West with Seward one game back. Barton (18-6) will travel to Dodge City Saturday for a 2 pm tip against the Conquistadors (0-10, 4-20).

Highlights
Barton won the contest despite getting just 4 minutes from its sophomore point guard Courtney Sturdivant. Sturdivant injured her knee just 4 minutes into the contest and did not return. The Cougars other starting guard, Michelle White, was limited to just 11 minutes of play in the 2nd half due to foul trouble. She fouled out of the contest with more than 4 minutes to play.

Even without the services of Sturdivant, the Cougars had a huge 1st half, surging to a 29-18 lead halfway through the period. The lead got as high as 15 – 49-34 – before the Saints ended the half on a 9-0 run to go to the locker room down just 49-43. Without Sturdivant at the point, White moved over and had a huge half, recording 8 points, 7 assists and 4 rebounds before picking up her 2nd foul and sitting the late stages of the half.

White started the 2nd half like she played the 1st, scoring the opening 4 points of the half to push Barton's lead back to double digits at 53-43. The Cougars still lead by 9 – 63-54 – when White picked up her 4th foul with 11 minutes to play in the game. It was her 2nd foul in a span of 90 seconds. At that point Seward began to work its way back into the contest eventually tying the score at 68-all with 5:16 left. That is when White re-entered but for just a brief 48 seconds before she picked up her 5th foul and went back to the bench with Barton up 71-70.

But during those final 4 1/2 minutes Barton didn't let down without its starting guards. Instead the Cougars responded with a 6-2 run to take a 77-72 lead 2 minutes to play. That would not be enough to hold off the Saints, though, who battled back to tied the game at 78-all with 8 seconds to play. Barton had one last chance, which the Cougars took advantage of. Brooke Conley's miss was grabbed by Todd, who was fouled in her effort for a put-back at the buzzer. After brief discussion, 0.4 seconds were put on the clock and Todd calmly knocked the 2 charity shots down for the 80-78 win.

Conley turned in a career-high 22 points for Barton – hitting 6-of-10 3-pointers. Kristine Silaraja added 19 points and 8 rebounds. White was on her way to a triple double before foul issues, ending the game with 15 points, 9 assists and 8 rebounds in 27 minutes. Todd added 10 including the game winners. Jordi James paced Barton with 13 rebounds and added 7 assists and 7 points. Despite playing all but 4 minutes without Sturdivant and most of the 2nd half without White, the Cougars committed just 14 turnovers against an aggressive Seward defense. Rachel Barnes had a big night for Seward, scoring 29 points and grabbing 14 rebounds.

Barton will look to retain a share of the 3-way lead in the West when the Cougars travel to Dodge City to take on a Conquistador team that hasn't won a West game in 2 years. Dodge has lost 26 straight West games.

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

Next
Feb 7 – at Dodge 2 pm (Jayhawk West contest at the Civic Center in Dodge City)