The Barton Community College women's basketball team had their four-game win streak over Hutchinson Community College snapped Wednesday night at the Sports Arena as the Blue Dragons methodically left the Cougars in the tail lights 73-47.
The first meeting between the teams at the Barton Gym in late November didn't start off well either, but Barton fought back in knocking off the then-21st ranked Blue Dragons. Two months later and suffering through a 32% shooting night, there was no comeback in the making as Hutchinson kept the Cougars scoreless for over six minutes across the first and second quarter in building seventeen point lead and never looked back.
The season series split drops Barton to 8-7 in conference and 11-10 overall while Hutchinson, receiving votes in the latest national poll, improves to 12-4 in league and 18-4 on the year.
Next up for the Cougars is their final home Saturday contest, hosting Independence Community College in a 2:00 p.m. tip at the Barton Gym.
Following up her career high 19 point night in the Cougars' win on Saturday, Brennan Kirchhoff again led the Cougars in scoring 14 points with Acorionna Lard adding 11 points as no other Cougar scored more than Jenny Nkem Womsi's 5 points and team leading 6 rebounds.
Natalie Payne, who provided an early unexpected thorn in the Cougars' side, led all players with a career high 19 points including 3-of-4 from beyond the arc and grabbing 6 rebounds. Mya Williams' career high 4 steals helped contribute to a 15 point night with Kalyn Ervin canned 3-of-5 from deep in scoring 12 points. Third-year sophomore Tor'e Alford produced a big all-around game of 11 points, 8 rebounds, 9 assists, and three steals in thirty-one minutes.
Hutchinson connected on 43.5% of their three-point shots (10-of-23), finishing 45.6% on the night with a 38-32 edge on the boards.
RECAP
Highlights came early for Barton, taking its lone pair of leads at 2-0 after Kirchhoff's short jumper and again at 4-3 following Lard's bucket. Payne knocked down her first trey of the night to put Hutchinson ahead as Morgan Meyer's lone field goal of the night tied it for the final time at six all.
Payne canned her second triple putting Hutchinson in front for good at 9-6, and following another Hutchinson bucket, Lard's lone three-pointer brought Barton to the closest it would come the rest of the evening at 11-9 at the 4:46 media timeout.
Barton went scoreless the rest of the opening frame, the Blue Dragons adding ten more points including two more long range shots in finishing 4-of-7 from deep to build a 21-9 advantage.
The fire kept burning to begin the second quarter, the Blue Dragons scoring the first five points including draining their fifth trey. Womsi' inside bucket finally got Barton back on the scoreboard trailing 26-11 with eight minutes remaining, halting a near seven minute drought. The Cougars added four more coming from a Kirchhoff drive to the cup and a pair of Addison Crites free throws drawing to within eleven. Following a Hutchinson bucket, Crites sank another pair of charity tosses to again cut the deficit to eleven but the Blue Dragons closed out the quarter with an 8-1 stretch to double up Barton at the break 36-18.
Any potential spark out of the locker room and make a run was pretty much distinguished in the first three minutes as Hutchinson's 7-0 run took the margin to over twenty on a 43-20 lead.
Outscoring Barton 23-15 in the third to widen the gap to 59-33, the teams played the final quarter with a lot of non-starters getting action in playing to a 14-all fourth quarter draw.