The Barton Community College women's basketball team took care of business Saturday afternoon with a 70-55 victory at Colby Community College.
The Cougars' mid-first half 10-0 run erased Colby's lone lead of the game as Barton would build a 25-point lead coming out of the halftime break to open the third quarter. The Trojans whittled away at the gap, slicing it to just nine with 5:39 remaining but a key 4-0 Barton stretch pushed the margin back out to double digits the rest of the way earning its inaugural win in the Colby Event Center.
Barton, along with Garden City's loss at Butler, takes over sole possession of fourth place in conference play at 14-9 while improving to 17-12 overall. Colby's fourth straight loss drops the Trojans to 5-17 in league and 8-19 on the season.
Next up the Cougars have control of a first round playoff bye if they can get past Dodge City Community College (12-10, 17-11) in Wednesday's 5:30 p.m. regular season finale at the Barton Gym.
Jenny Nkem Womsi's 12th double-double of the year led Barton performers in scoring 16 points and hauling down 14 rebounds. Acorionna Lard added 15 points and 4 rebounds, Mikaela Hall with 14 points and 7 rebounds, and Morgan Meyers canned 2-of-4 beyond the arc on the way to a 13 point, 4 rebound, and 4 assist night.
The Cougars led the boards for the 23rd game, outrebounding the conference's fifth best Trojans 48-30 with Dayjsha Fanning coming off the bench to help the cause adding 7 rebounds and 6 points.
De'jah Vigilante's career high 16 points and 8 rebounds led the Trojans with Kiarra Henderson adding 12 points and Oluwabukola Akinsola contributing 11 points off the bench.
The Cougars shot over 40% in each of the four quarters including 50% second half shooting to finish at 46.3%. Conversely, Colby was under 30% all night in finishing at 27.8% including just 5-of-27 from beyond the arc.
RECAP
A four point spurt gave Colby its lone lead of the game at 15-14 with 1:36 left in the first frame but four straight Fanning points turned the advantage back to Barton before the quarter horn.
The momentum carried over to the second quarter with Meyers and Lard banging treys increasing the run to 10-0 as the Cougar defense held Colby scoreless for five minutes stretching across the quarters.
Barton continued on to a thirteen point 36-23 halftime lead, outscoring the Trojans 18-8 since trailing late in the first quarter.
Womsi took over early third quarter play, scoring ten of Barton's 12-0 start to the frame to build its largest lead of twenty-five at 48-23 with 5:23 left.
Six straight by the Trojans turned momentum, outscoring Barton 15-6 in slicing the deficit to sixteen headed to the fourth.
Colby buried a pair of treys in the first two minutes then canned another with 5:22 left in drawing to within nine.
As neither team could convert on a pair of possession, Meyers put the margin into double digits to stay with Cora Anderson's jumper on the next time down the court pushed the lead out to thirteen with 3:39 remaining.
Brennan Kirchhoff, Barton's leading scorer on the season, broke into the scoring column with a fair of free throws with 2:09 left with Meyers and Hall adding good tosses in the last minute to ice the victory.