Big first half propels Barton women to first round playoff victory over Northwest Technical

Scoring fifty-one first half points Saturday night at the Barton Gym, the Barton Community College women's basketball team fought off a Northwest Kansas Technical College second half rally to cruise to an 88-66 victory.  Barton, the fourth seed out of the Jayhawk West, improves to 19-10 on the season advancing to Wednesday's Region VI Quarterfinals while Northwest Tech ends the season at 7-22.  The Lady Cougars will take on the top seed out of the Jayhawk East, the 23-8 Coffeyville Community College Red Ravens at 1:00 p.m. at Wichita's Koch Arena.  The winner will advance to Friday's semifinals against the winner of Seward County Community College and Cowley College.

Having trailed by two at halftime but going on to defeat the Lady Mavericks by forty back in November in Goodland, it didn't take Barton long to get going this time around.  Trailing 8-7 at the 16:45 mark, Barton scored eighteen unanswered to build a 25-8 lead in just a matter of four minutes.  Behind nineteen first half points from Phikala Anthony and the all-around play of Indiah Cauley's eleven points, seven rebounds, and six assists the Lady Cougars took the lead out to nineteen before going into the break with a 51-36 lead.

Northwest wasn't about to go away easily as the Lady Mavericks' 14-4 run in the second frame's opening five minutes cut the deficit to 55-50.  A 7-2 run started by Anthony with a Katrina Roenfeldt trey capped by a Cauley jumper pushed the lead back out to ten.  Northwest drew back to within eight a couple times but an 11-1 Lady Cougar run key by six straight by Cauley midway through the half put the game away.

Matching her career high for the second straight game, Anthony lead four Lady Cougars in scoring with twenty-nine points including a perfect 7-of-7 from the free throw stripe.  Just missing a triple double, Cauley scored nineteen points and dished out a career high ten assists to go along with leading the Lady Cougars' 47-18 rebound advantage with eight boards.  Dominique Baker had a solid all-around floor game with eleven points and three assists as the 5'4" point guard also grabbed seven rebounds with four coming on the offensive glass.  Roenfeldt rounded out the double digit scoring with ten points and six rebounds while dishing out four dimes and sharing the team lead with Baker in steals with two each.

Leticia Rodriguez led three Lady Mavericks with eighteen points on 7-of-14 from the field.  Nyachiang Bile, who knocked down 4-of-9 behind the arc, scored seventeen while Shambray Budd added ten points and shared team high rebound honors with Kali Zimmerman with four.