The Barton Community College volleyball team closed out the regular season with a bang doing damage to the top of the conference standings Thursday night in Colby knocking off first place Colby Community College 20-25, 25-19, 25-23, and 25-21. Having already secured a first round home match after Tuesday's victory over Cloud County Community College, Barton ends the regular season on a five match win streak to finish fourth in the conference at 8-6 and 12-18 overall. With the loss Colby drops into a first place tie with Hutchinson Community College at 12-2 and ends the regular season at 23-8. Barton will begin their quest for their 22nd region title on Wednesday October 30th as the Cougars host Cloud County in a 6:30 p.m. Region VI first round playoff match.
McKenzie Piland led the Cougars with her ninth double-double of the season recording fifteen digs and nineteen kills while hitting .340 on the night. Fellow sophomores Jori Mote and Mackenzie Orchard nearly reached double-digit in kills finishing with nine each while hitting .217 and .176 respectively.
Defensively the Cougars had three other players join Piland with double-digit digs. Hoisington freshman Mykela Riedl led Barton with twenty while the reigning KJCCC Co-Defensive Player of the Week Kiara Rivera had twelve. Casey Friesen recorded her third double-double of the season with ten digs to go along with a team high nineteen assists while fellow freshman Lakyn Rowden put up seventeen assists.
The Cougars victory shook up not only the conference standings but seedings for the upcoming Region VI Tournament. By virtue of the direct head-to-head tiebreaker of sets won against each other, Colby slips into the second spot while Hutchinson gets the nod for the top seed. Hutchinson will now host the Region VI final four double-elimination tournament on Sunday and Monday, November 10-11 at the Hutchinson Sports Arena. Times and matchups will be announced after the opening-round matches next week.
Region VI 1st Round matchups:
#1 Hutchinson vs #8 Dodge City
#2 Colby vs #7 Pratt
#3 Seward vs #6 Garden City
#4 Barton vs #5 Cloud County