The 22nd ranked Barton Community College women's basketball team scored the first fourteen points Tuesday night in cruising to a 96-43 season opening victory over the junior varsity squad from Sterling College.
The Cougars make the short trip to Hutchinson for their next pair of games participating in the BSN Sports Tipoff Classic, taking on Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College Friday followed by Saturday's matchup against Mineral Area College. A 1:00 p.m. tip-off time for each with live stream coverage available on the Barton Sports Network found at www.BartonSports.com.
Alissa Heskamp led five Cougars in double-digit scoring with a career tying 17 points by draining 3-of-7 beyond the arc. Morgan Meyers' 4-of-7 from deep contributed to 14 points, Jenny Nkem Womsi and Racheal Emmanuel added 11 points each, and Mikaela Hall contributed 10 points.
Grace John's six assists led the Cougars' 23 dimes on 36 made baskets, Brennan Kirchhoff and Meyers accounted for five steals each, while Tatum Boettjer and McKenna Vogl hauled down six rebounds each.
Jorah Harbaugh led the Warriors with 10 points including 2-of-3 shooting behind the arc while Kayla Morris led Sterling plus-5 rebound edge with nine.
Connecting on 13 shots behind the arc, overall Barton shot 46.2% for the night and 75% from the charity stripe. Forcing 48 turnovers, twenty-six came as a result of Barton steals while holding the Warriors to just 35.3% from the field.
RECAP
After racing out the fourteen point lead, Sterling connected on their first bucket with 3:05 left in the opening frame with Kirchhoff and Meyers answering with consecutive three-pointers in pushing the gap to eighteen.
Forcing 14 of the turnovers in the first quarter, the Cougars would lead by twenty-two at the end of the opening ten minutes behind the Warrior miscues and Barton's 63.2% shooting including Meyers' buzzer beating deep three-pointer.
Sterling committed sixteen more turnovers in the second frame, Barton coming up with ten steals to combat just 30.4% shooting to add nine more to its advantage for a 47-17 halftime lead.
The Cougars heated back up coming out the locker room to the tune of 50% shooting, Meyers draining a pair of triples with Heskamp drilling another to help tack on seven more to its lead.
All twelve Cougars suited up scored in the contest with Keeley Wolf being the last to do so by canning a left wing triple with 3:58 remaining as Barton would eventually lead by as many as 53 points for the final seventy-six seconds.