Rough fourth quarter sends Barton women to road loss at Cloud County

Trailing by one headed to the fourth quarter, the Barton Community College women's basketball was outscored by fourteen in the final ten minutes as Cloud County Community College pulled away for a 67-52 victory Wednesday night in Concordia.  The second straight loss was also the second straight identical 67-52 score as Barton drops to 3-8 in the Jayhawk and 11-11 on the season while Cloud County improves to 6-5 and 14-8 on the season.   Next up for Barton will be Saturday's Homecoming and Pink Out Night as the Lady Cougars take on No. 8 ranked Hutchinson Community College in a 5:30 p.m. tip at the Barton Gym.

The teams traded seven point runs in the first quarter with Barton extending their run into the second frame for a 15-0 stretch turning a twelve point deficit to a 22-19 lead with 6:28 to play.  The Lady T-birds chipped away until two consecutive three-pointers grabbed the lead until Dominique Baker's eleventh point of the first half beat the buzzer tying the contest at twenty-eight for the intermission.

Two more treys opened up an early three point lead for the T-birds early in the third before a 6-0 Barton run regained the lead by two.  Megan Jirak started the run with her first field goal of the game followed by Jalisa Jones' goal and two Kilee Harris free throws.  Another Lady T-bird three-pointer switched the lead back to Cloud County and after a pair of Megan Jirak charity throws would give Barton's its final lead, a bucket before the end of the quarter put the Lady T-birds ahead 42-41.

Cloud County quickly increased the lead four additional points going on to outscore Barton 22-4 in the first eight minutes as the Lady Cougars were ice cold from the field.   Jones' third quarter 3:09 field goal was the last by Barton until a little over a minute to play leaving a twelve minute drought consisting of only free throws in which the Lady Cougars were 8-of-10 during that time frame.

Harris again led Barton in scoring knocking down 3-of-6 from behind the arc and 7-of-8 from the stripe for twenty-two points just missing her third straight double-double finishing with nine rebounds.  Baker finished with twelve after her eleven point first half outburst and led Barton with three assists while Jirak led in rebounding with eleven including six on the offensive glass.

Cloud County got all their offensive production from their starters as all reached double-figures led by Chelcie Kizart's seventeen.   Kaley Broeckelman added fifteen with Gabrielle Figgers scoring fourteen as the three players were a blistering 11-of-23 from behind the arc.   Erin Alexander scored eleven and Kristina Farber finished with ten.   Broeckelman, Alexander, and Darby Price off the bench each grabbed eight rebounds to lead a slim one board advantage by the Lady T-birds with Kizart dishing out a team high six assists.