Lady Cougars’ rally falls short in home conference loss to Garden City

The Barton Community College women's basketball team couldn't recover from a frigid shooting night and costly turnovers Wednesday night at the Barton Gym as the rally fell on the short end 52-47 to Garden City Community College.   The loss drops Barton to 1-1 in Jayhawk play and 11-3 overall while Garden City picked up their first conference win to improve to 1-2 and 10-7 overall.  The Lady Cougars will head back to the conference road traveling to El Dorado on Saturday to take on Butler Community College in a 2:00 p.m. tip at the Power Plant.

In shooting only twenty-six percent and giving the ball away twenty-four times, Barton suffered through nearly fourteen minutes of scoreless play to dig a twenty-point hole with ten minutes remaining.  The drought began at the 3:45 mark of first half action with the Lady Cougars leading by four and ended on a Bethany Bowman inside bucket with 10:13 to play with Barton trailing by eighteen.  

Five points from Phikala Anthony including a trey sparked an 11-0 Barton run in five minutes to put the Lady Cougars within striking distance trailing by eight with just under four minutes to play.  Matching point for point, Ciera Lampe's trey from the top of the key drew the Lady Cougars to within six with thirty-nine seconds to play.

Garden City gave the Lady Cougars hope in the failing seconds, missing the front end of a one-and-one and both double bonus charity throws but two Anthony free throws to cut the deficit to three with only five seconds remaining was the closest Barton could come.  Bianca Cage sealed the five point victory knocking down both of her opportunities with two clicks left on the clock.

Phikala Anthony led Barton in scoring for the ninth time this season posting her fourth double-double with a twenty-three point twelve rebound effort as the lone Lady Cougar to reach double-figures.  Posting a career high seventeen two days prior at Dodge City, Indiah Cauley added eight points while Ciera Lampe sored six.  Along with Anthony, Brandi Williams helped Barton to a 49-43 advantage on the glass equally pulling down twelve boards while point guard Dominique Baker led with five dimes. 

Loysha Morris and Justina James were the lone Lady Busters in double-digit scoring with seventeen points each while Tori Spann came off the bench to grab twelve rebounds and added eight points.