Miller's school record performance powers Barton women to 79-53 win at Colby #GoBarton

Freshman Mallory Miller of the Barton Community College women's basketball team knocked down a school record ten three-pointers Wednesday night at the Colby Community Building leading the Lady Cougars to a 79-53 win at Colby Community College. Connecting on five long balls in the second quarter alone, Miller helped Barton to a twenty-six point halftime advantage as the Lady Cougars cruised to victory in snapping a five game road losing streak to begin the season. Remaining tied for fifth place improving to 9-5 and 13-6 on the year, Barton sent Colby to its sixth straight loss dropping to 2-12 in the Jayhawk and 4-14 overall. The Lady Cougars return home on Saturday with a 5:30 p.m. tip against Garden City Community College (7-7, 10-8) before embarking on a two game road stretch.

Tied at six all, the Lady Cougars tightened up the defensive end while scoring sixteen straight on the offensive end to close out the quarter with a 22-6 lead. Freshman Jaylin Stapleton led the way with thirteen first quarter points with Miller taking over the second, draining five shots from beyond the arc helping to increase the lead by thirteen. Fellow freshman Taylor Regan also provided a second frame spark with six points as Barton again finished the quarter strong outscoring the Lady Trojans 16-4 down the stretch.

Sophomore Micaela Jellison's tough inside bucket to open up the third increased the margin to Barton's largest at twenty-eight points but the Lady Trojans countered by taking the next six. Miller halted the run with her sixth trey of the night with just one miss but the quarter would belong to Colby as an 8-0 run led to the Lady Trojans shaving nine points off the Barton lead.

Miller scored the twentieth point of her career scoring night on a text book fake on the trey, dribbling in and pulling up for a sixteen footer. She would then step back outside the arc knocking down consecutive triples to tie the 2008 record of eight set in the same season by Kristine Silaraja and Ipek Turkyilmaz with 4:04 left in the contest. Following an empty Colby possession out of the timeout, the Eisenhower High School product struck for her third straight long ball before capping the thirty-four point career high night with the tenth splashdown with two minutes remaining.

Regan nearly jumped into the program's record book as well as the Albert native and Otis-Bison High School product hauled down eighteen rebounds with fifteen on the defensive glass to just fall outside the chart. Finishing with eleven points to record her second collegiate double-double, Regan was joined by Stapleton to round out the double digit scoring as the Meade product finished with seventeen points while dishing out a team high five assists. Jellison fell one point shy of her second double-double of the season dumping in nine points while collecting eleven rebounds to help Barton to a fifteen board edge over the Lady Trojans.

Tierra Itula scored more than half of Colby's points as the Utah freshman put up twenty-eight points and collected eleven rebounds.

Other Game Notes:

• Barton's victory was the tenth straight in the series as Barton leads the series 60-8 and 29-3 at Colby
• The road win snapped a five game losing streak to begin the 2017-18 season and a seven straight road woe stretch dating back to last seasons' 59-58 overtime victory at Independence on Feb. 18, 2017
• Mallory Miller's 34 points surpassed her previous career high of 27. The Region VI three-point leader at 47.2%, Miller's previous best three-point game had come against now No. 13 ranked Seward County, going 6-of-7 behind the arc and has made four or more long balls in a game eight times in the eighteen contests
• Juliana Chagas left the game in the second quarter with an injury snapping a five game streak of reaching double figures. However, the sophomore from Brazil did manage to drain a three-pointer for her eight straight game, going 13-of-17 (76.5%) during the stretch
• In addition to Miller and Chagas, Jaylin Stapleton was 1-of-2 behind the arc giving Barton twelve made three pointers to tie the season high mark set against Butler
• Defensively, Barton set a season best by holding Colby to just .091 (2-of-22) behind the arc
• Barton hauled down 53 rebounds, securing thirty-seven on the defensive boards while limiting second place Colby to twenty-five to widen their lead atop the region and top ten national ranking
• Barton rejected five shots for the second straight game to stay atop the region ahead of Hutchinson and among the top-25 in the nation