Lady Cougars on a mission, knock off No. 20 Seward to advance to Region VI Semifinal

The Barton Community College women's basketball team pulled their second straight upset victory of the postseason knocking off Seward County Community College 61-56 in the Region VI Quarterfinals held at Wichita's Koch Arena.  The Lady Cougars, entering the tournament as the 12th seed, led from beginning to end over the 4th seeded Lady Saints to put to bed a four-game drought against Seward and the first postseason win over Seward since 2000.  Improving to 20-12 on the season, Barton will next play at 1:00 p.m. Friday in the semifinals against top seeded and No. 6 ranked Butler Community College.  Seward County ends the season at 26-6.

Barton's Brandy Winbush drained an early three to get the Lady Cougars out to a 5-0 lead as Barton led by as much as eleven in the first half of play.  Winbush would go on to knock down two more in the first half as the sophomore has hit a three in 28 of Barton's 32 games this season.  The Lady Cougars took a 35-27 lead to the break shooting just shy of 47.8% from the field while holding Seward to 28.9% shooting.

"We moved the ball really good in the first half," said Barton Head Coach Carter Kruger. "We wanted to attack on the offensive end.

With 13:30 to play in the game, Seward Head Coach Toby Wynn picked up a technical foul in dispute of Shanise Brooks picking up her 4th foul.  Barton connected on 3-of-4 free throws to increase the lead out to 44-34.

Back came the Lady Saints on a 7-0 to cut it to three, but as the case all game, Barton answered every Seward run to lead by five points most of the second half of play.  

A 4-0 Seward run cut the lead to three Barton made 4-of-6 free throws to while Seward could only manage one field goal and a 1-of-2 free throw opportunity in the last 2 minutes.

For the game Barton cooled down to 39% from the field and committed 26 turnovers allowing Seward to have opportunities.  However despite grabbing 19 offensive rebounds, Seward couldn't capitalize shooting only 28% from the field including a miserable 3-of-31 from behind the arc (9.7%).

"I'm really proud of the way the kids executed the game plan," said Barton Head Coach Carter Kruger. "Kill the paint to keep Seward out. We played really good defense and forced them into taking shots they didn't want to take."

Two Barton players came off the bench to reach double-figures as six Lady Cougars scored eight or more points.  Mariana Lambert led the way with twelve points while Phikala Anthony scored eleven.  Cheyenne Hedrington led the 50-44 Barton rebound edge with thirteen to go along with her team high two steals while Kailai Brantner led with three assists. 

Despite foul trouble for most of the game, Seward's Shanise Brooks put up a double-double fourteen points and grabbed thirteen points.  Alana Simon was the only other Lady Saint to reach double figures by scoring fourteen points on 6-of-15 shooting.