Defensive effort not enough, Lady Cougars outgunned by No. 20 Seward County

Despite a valiant defensive effort Saturday afternoon at the Barton Gym, the Barton Community College women's basketball simply didn't have enough offensive firepower to match Seward County Community College dropping a 67-52 decision to the No. 20 ranked Lady Saints.   The loss drops Barton to 3-7 in the Jayhawk and 11-10 on the season while Seward County improves to 7-3 and 15-5 on the season.   Next up for the Lady Cougars will be a Wednesday trip to Concordia taking on Cloud County Community College in a 6:00 p.m. tip-off.

Seward County pounded the ball inside early taking the lead from the opening tip until a Kilee Harris knotted things up at twelve.  The Lady Saints would take a 14-12 lead into the second ten minutes of play and built an eight point lead thanks to a modest 6-0 run.  Treys by Regan Unruh and Keneisha Winfrey brought Barton to within five before the Lady Saints tacked on a pair of free throws to take a 27-20 lead to the locker room.

The third quarter was all Seward County beginning with a 10-3 run and later ballooning the lead out to eighteen for a controlling 50-33 lead to the fourth.

As Seward County did in the third, Barton launched their own run opening the quarter with five straight on Jalisa Jones and Alexus Bryson jumpers followed by a Dominique Baker 1-of-2 trip to the line drawing to within twelve.  Two Seward County baskets countered the run but back came Barton as the defensive end keyed some offensive momentum.

The Lady Cougars began flying around the court and leaving it all on the court forcing turnovers while converting offensive opportunities including Harris draining her third long ball of the game and suddenly Barton was knocking at the door down seven with 5:15 to play.

Like a nation's top twenty team, the Lady Saints weathered the storm rebuilding the lead back out to twelve in the next couple of minutes.  With a worn out Barton team unable to mount another push, Seward County secured its possessions outscoring the Lady Cougars 5-2 down the stretch to secure their fifth straight win in the Barton Gym. 

Harris recorded her second straight and third double-double in last four games leading Barton with eleven points and twelve rebounds.   Unruh also added eleven points to go along with seven rebounds while Jones added ten.   The point guard position dished out seven assists on the night, four coming from Baker despite fouling out early fourth quarter and three coming from Bryson.  Baker and Harris each had three steals while Jones and Megan Jirak had two each.

Axelle Bernard had a monster game for the Lady Saints scoring fourteen points and hauling down seventeen rebounds while also getting four of Seward County's nine blocks on the night.  Clitan  de Sousa also put up fourteen points in part to sinking all six of her charity throws.  Tiani White led the Lady Saints in both dishing the ball and taking the ball finishing with three assists and three steals.