Second half comeback falls short, Barton women wither late in 55-41 loss at No. 3 Butler #GoBarton

Slicing a big deficit to four, the last six minutes of Saturday afternoon's contest at the Power Plant turned into a double digit loss for the Barton Community College women's basketball team as 3rd ranked Butler Community College held off the upset bid for a 55-41 victory.

The Cougars led 9-4 just south of four minutes into the contest but that's when the first half wheels fell off as Barton went over ten minutes without a field goal while Butler put up a nineteen point differential to lead 27-13 at halftime.

Following a Butler bucket to open the third quarter, Barton controlled a good portion of the frame stringing a 9-0 run and 13-5 stretch to close within six. Looking to shave even more off the deficit late on the clock, the Cougars missed a pair of point-blank opportunities with Butler taking advantage by knocking down a shot with five seconds left pushing the margin back to eight.

Scoring the first five points of the final quarter to draw within three, two minutes later Barton would again get within striking distance on McKenna Vogl's lone basket of the contest coming with 7:41 to play. From there the turnover bug, which plagued the Cougars to a tune of 23 for the game along with giving up 14 offensive rebounds on the afternoon, doomed Barton for nearly the next four minutes as Butler grew their lead back to double-digits behind eleven straight.

Barton drops to 3-2 in conference play and 7-3 overall seeing their three-game win streak including the last two on Butler's home floor come to an end while the Grizzlies stay unblemished at 4-0 in league and 10-0 overall.

With two games left on the pre-Christmas break schedule, Barton will next host Northwest Kansas Technical College on Wednesday in a 5:30 p.m. tip before winding up the slate Saturday with a 2:00 p.m. tip at Seward County Community College.

Barton shot just 28% from the field, being led by the 5-of-10 effort from Quezia Bertoni in scoring 11 points including a three-pointer that halted the Cougars' fourth quarter scoring drought. Tatum Boettjer added 9 points while the inside game of Vivian Onugha's 11 rebound with 2 points and Vera Ojenuwa's 6 points and 4 rebounds were saddled all afternoon by foul trouble.

For the Grizzlies who had won their previous games by an average of 34 points, Freddie Wallace was also held 7 points below her average for a 13 point day on 5-of-15 shooting. J'uniti Franklin joined Wallace with a pair of treys each to finish with 10 points.

Grace John led Barton's eight distributions with 6 assists while Randi Harding dished out 7 of the Grizzlies' 14 assists.

SERIES NOTES:
- Butler's win snapped 3-game losing streak including two straight to Barton on their home floor
- Teams are 5-5 in last ten games
- Barton held to lowest output in series since 2015
- Fourth straight time Butler was held under 56 points in the series
- Barton leads series 27-18 at Butler
- Barton leads the overall series 60-32