Tuesday night at the Barton Gym was off to the races with pit stops at the foul line at the 18th ranked Barton Community College women's basketball team outgunned Neosho County Community College 126-81.
The Cougars improve to 4-0 on the year as Neosho County drops their first of game of the year in falling to 3-1.
Barton will now turn its sights on hosting the weekend's Best Western/Cougar Booster Club Classic. On Friday the Cougars take on Redlands Community College followed by Saturday's game against Division II 6th ranked Labette Community College. A 5:30 p.m. tipoff slated for each of the contests with live stream audio and video coverage available on the Barton Sports Network found at www.BartonSports.com. Also competing in the Classic's earlier 1:00 p.m. contest each day will be the 5th ranked Blue Dragons of Hutchinson Community College.
It was a record shooting night for the Cougars in connecting on 48-of-69 shots for a program best 69.6% from the field. Tallying a program single game record 52 defensive rebounds, the Cougars were off and running with a plus-44 point advantage in the paint dishing out a third most 34 assists in racking up the fourth most points in Lady Cougar history.
Six Cougars reached double-figures with twelve hitting the scoring column. Morgan Meyers' career high night of 29 points on 12-of-15 shooting led all scorers in being followed by Jenny Nkem Womsi's 18 points and 14 rebounds for her second double-double of the season.
Leading the big distribution night was Acorionna Lard with 9 assists, just missing a triple-double after scoring 13 points and grabbing 10 rebounds, to go along with 3 blocks and 2 steals to complete her all-around performance.
Also in double figures were Alissa Heskamp dropping 2-of-3 behind the arc for 16 points and Brennan Kirchhoff's 10 points while flirting with a big stat night in grabbing 9 rebounds and dishing out 7 assists.
Neosho County shot just 28.9% from the floor on 28-of-97 shots including 9-of-31 from three-point land for 29%.
Fifty-two fouls were called in the contest resulting in sixty-five free throws, Barton connecting on 26-of-37 (70.3%) while the Panthers were 16-of-28 (57.1%).
Im'Unique White led Neosho County with 21 points, Toriauna Douglas added 13 points off the bench, and Kori Babcok contributed 10 points.
Barton scored 27 or more points in each of the quarters, leading by ten after the first period before tacking on fifteen more to its margin with a 42 point second quarter to enjoy a 72-47 gap into halftime.
Holding the Panthers to just 32 second half points, Barton hung 27 points in each of the third and fourth with Mikaela Hall's inside bucket from Lard's 9th assist of game putting Barton over the century mark with 9:34 left in the game.
Record Book Impact
- 69.6% - Highest single game shooting percentage
- 52 Defensive Rebounds – Most single game
- 34 Assists – 3rd most single game
- 126 Points – 4th most single game