Red hot Seward County buries Lady Cougars for conference road defeat

In a near repeat of last year's meeting at the Greenhouse, the Barton Community College women's basketball team had no early answer for the Saints' onslaught as No. 20 Seward County Community College kept the hammer down forcing twenty-eight turnovers for an 87-48 victory.  Knocking down their first twelve shots for an 80% first quarter shooting display, the Saints buried the Lady Cougars to hand Barton its second straight conference loss and fourth straight in Liberal.  Now 2-2 in Jayhawk play, Barton drops to 5-3 on the season while Seward County remains at the top of the standings improving to 4-0 and 6-0 on the year.  Following a short break for Thanksgiving, the Lady Cougars return to the court in preparation for Saturday's home contest against No. 17 Cowley College.  Tip-off slated for 3:30 p.m. at the Barton Gym.

Just like this past Saturday night in El Dorado, the Lady Cougars were put in an early hole trailing by seven before Megan Jirak's fifteen foot jumper found the bottom of the net.  Following a Jalisa Jones slash through the lane to again cut the deficit to five, the Saints hit the gas with another sevn point stretch forcing Head Coach Alan Clark to call the first of two first quarter timeouts.  The momentary stoppage of play did little to extinguish the flame as a Saints 8-0 run increased the deficit as Seward County went on to shoot 80% in the quarter to lead 28-13.

Jirak's ninth of eleven first half points came in the opening minute of the second frame and after two Saints free throws, Regan Unruh's banked in trey drew Barton within twelve for the closest it would come the rest of the contest.  With ten turnovers in the final eight minutes not helping the cause, Barton would then get outscored 12-2 with the Saints canning a late three-pointer taking a 45-22 lead to the locker room.

Katrina Roenfeldt finally broke into the scoring column with a step-back trey for her first of two second half treys being followed by a Jones 1-of-2 trip to the line gave Barton some early third quarter momentum.  Any thoughts of a comeback with then washed away as the Saints went on an 11-0 run burying the Lady Cougars in a thirty point hole. 

Seward County would extend the lead to 69-32 early in the fourth behind a ten point stretch as the second wave of Saints controlled the rest of the game.   Barton did trade point for point with the next batch of Saints until a late 12-0 run expanded the margin to forty-one.

Jirak was held to two second half points leading Barton in scoring with thirteen points as Baylee Robinson was the only other Lady Cougar to reach double-digits with ten points.  Averaging just shy of seventeen points, Roenfeldt was held to six points but the 5'6" sophomore led Barton in rebound with seven, six coming on the defensive glass.

Four Lady Saints reached double-digits led by the sixteen points from Mollie Mounsey on 5-of-6 shooting from the field.  Clitan de Sousa scored twelve with Diamond Bailey coming off the bench with a perfect 5-of-5 for eleven points.  Neidy Ocuane added ten with Manuela Fungate grabbing four of her team high seven rebounds on the offensive end while also leading the Saints by dishing out four assists.

The Lady Cougars ended the contest shooting 34.5% from the field while Seward County cooled off from their hot 80% start to the game finishing at a mere 53.8% including 47.8% from beyond the arc (11-of-23) while Barton could only connect on 25% of their long balls going 4-of-16. Barton did outrebound the taller Saints 37-33 with seventeen coming on the offensive glass but the twenty-eight turnovers to the Saints fifteen helped dig the Lady Cougars early grave.