Lady Cougars’ streak snapped as comeback falls short

The Barton Community College women's basketball team had their modest two-game winning streak snapped Saturday night at the Barton Gym as Cloud County Community College completed the conference season sweep winning 78-72.  Coming off two wins on the conference road, the Lady Cougars could have moved into the third spot in the conference standings with the victory.  The loss drops Barton to 17-8 on the season and into fifth place at 5-4 in the standings.  Cloud improves to 14-9 on the season and is tied with Garden City at 5-3.  Barton's next game will be Wednesday at Pratt Community College in a 6:00 p.m. tip at the Dennis Lesh Sports Arena. 

"We didn't come out ready to play," said Barton head coach Carter Kruger in post-game interview with the Great Bend Tribune. "As a coach, that's hard to sit with because it is my job to get us ready to play. It's unfortunate. It was a great opportunity and we squandered it."

Cloud County controlled most of the game including building an eleven point lead in the first half.  The Lady Cougars fought back going on a 12-2 run started by a Mariana Lambert three-pointer to take a 31-30 lead with 3:07 to play.  It was the last time Barton would lead as the Lady T-Birds closed out the half on a 6-0 run to take a 36-31 into the break. 

"We make a couple plays, and then we'd give up a layup," Kruger said. "We'd make a couple plays, and they'd hit a 3. They came in here wanting to win it more than we wanted to win it. It really was just an energy failure and an effort failure in terms of being ready to go."

The Lady T-birds opened the half scoring the first four points before another Lambert trey cut the deficit back to six.  After two foul shots by Raneisha Duncan, Phikala Anthony's jumper brought the Lady Cougars back to within six but it was as close as Barton would come until late in the contest.  

Cloud County would build the lead out to fourteen with eight minutes to play before the Lady Cougars would begin chipping away at the deficit.  Trailing by ten with 1:14 to play, Kailai Brantner knocked down two pairs of free throws then Brandy Winbush drained a trey to cut the deficit to four with thirty-three seconds remaining.  The Lady T-birds then converted 6-of-8 free throws in the clutch to seal the victory.

Ashton Bruner had a big night for the Lady Cougars posting her fifth double-double of the season scoring nineteen points and ten rebounds while also leading Barton with four steals.  Cheyenne Hedrington scored seventeen as the sophomore transfer has scored in double figures in 20-of-25 games this season.  Coming off the bench Mariana Lambert scored twelve points as the freshman reached double digits for the fourth straight game.  Kailai Brantner's eight assists were the third straight game the sophomore point guard dished out eight or more assists.  Taylor Mayes, who finished with eight points, rejected a five blocks to match her career high set last season.

Raneisha Duncan was the big story in leading three Cloud County players in double figures.  Averaging eight points on the season, the freshman knocked down 5-of-8 from behind the arc and 7-of-16 total from the field to lead the Lady Thunderbirds with twenty-one points.  Tai Nittler scored eighteen while Jayna Smith scored twelve.  Cloud's leading scorer on the season Jordyn Alexander was held to ten points and two rebounds below her average finishing with only six points and six rebounds.  Duncan and Alexander were joined by reserve Kimi Lindshield for team honors in rebounds with six each.