Lady Cougars christen Fleske Court in 68-52 win over Dodge City
Playing the first game on the new “L.T. and Sheila Fleske Court”, the Barton Community College women’s basketball team took care of Dodge City Community College 69-52 Monday at the Barton Gym. Getting a career high sixteen points from Taschell Phillips, the Lady Cougars evened their conference mark at 1-1 and improved to 11-4 on the season while dropping Dodge to 0-2 and 6-10 overall. Halfway through their four-game seven day stretch, Barton travels to Garden City Community College on Wednesday for a 5:30 p.m. contest at the Dennis Perryman Athletic Complex then host Butler Community College on Saturday.
Consisting of a combined twenty-one first half fouls, neither team was able to establish much of a rhythm in the contest. The Lady Cougars countered the foul trouble by outscoring Dodge by ten points from the bench play in building a 41-29 halftime lead. Phillips's fourteen first half points aided by a three-for-three from behind the arc performance by Brandy Winbush helped the Lady Cougars to the twelve point advantage. Limiting the Lady Conqs to under 39% from the field, Ashton Bruner controlled the boards in grabbing ten of her team high thirteen rebounds to limit the Lady Conqs second chance opportunities.
A Kelli Tolar trey brought Dodge to within six with twelve minutes to play in the game but a 10-1 Lady Cougar run in the next five minutes put the game away. Erin Copeland's two-for-three behind the arc performance along with a strong defensive effort limiting Dodge to 21% second half shooting gave the Lady Cougars its first conference win of the season and open Fleske Court with a victory.
Phillips and Winbush led Barton with sixteen and eleven points respectively as four other Lady Cougars scored eight or more points. Bruner led the twenty-point Barton rebound advantage with thirteen while Copeland and Kailai Brantner dished out four assists each.
Jameeshia Armstrong led Dodge in scoring with fifteen while Kelli Tolar scored fourteen, ten coming in first half action.