18th ranked Barton women's soccer drops regular season finale, splits season series with 12th ranked Cowley #GoBarton

The 18th ranked Barton Community College women's soccer team concluded the regular season Saturday dropping a 3-1 battle at 12th ranked Cowley College.

Barton winds up the West Conference in second place at 9-3-1 and 12-3-1 overall while Cowley avenges the Cougars' 1-0 victory earlier in the season, sitting atop the standings at 12-1-0 and 13-1-1 on the year.

The Cougars will next host a first round Region VI playoff game, tentatively set for Sunday, October 31 against Johnson County Community College.

Barton helped set up Cowley's first goal coming just 5:35 into the contest. A foul outside the box set up a Manuela Oliveira free kick, initially deflected out by goalkeeper Nia Baker but no other Cougar was able to get a boot on it leaving Lucia Fernandez to blast past Baker for the early lead.

As the first half approached eleven minutes to play, Baker came up with consecutive quality high saves, the first coming on another Cowley free kick with the second coming soon after deflecting a corner kick opportunity.

Twenty seconds later the Cougar defense thought the Tigers were offside but the non-call left Baker in a 1v1 situation as Gabrielle Oliveria found the net for the 2-0 lead.

The Cougars fired back in the ensuing thirty seconds as Nicole Thorp sent a pinpoint through ball from the midfield to the left wing finding Annika Gerdau racing beyond a Tiger defender then blasting past the Cowley keeper Makayla Farquharson slicing the deficit in half. For Gerdau it was her team leading 11th goal of the season, moving into a tie for Barton's 11th spot all-time on her 19th career goal as Thorp distributed her 7th of the year.

Oliveira would again put the Tigers up by two midway through the second half, using her speed to slip in behind the defense to strike upper near post beyond Baker's reach with 26:21 left.

The Cougars had their best scoring chance with 11:30 remaining as Francesca Martell's free kick bent around the defensive wall was booted just over the crossbar by Seulgi Lee.

Each team launched seven shots on frame with Cowley outshooting the Cougars overall at 13-10.