For the first time since 2011, the Barton Community College volleyball team retook the court at the NJCAA National Tournament Thursday morning. Unfortunately, the return result was unkind as the Cougars fell in four sets to third seeded Snow College 14-25, 21-25, 25-23, and 25-12.
The loss moves Barton to 25-5 on the season and pushes the Cougars to the consolation side of the bracket while the Badgers improve their overall record to 24-2 on the season advancing into Thursday evening's Quarterfinal matchup against Florida Southwestern State.
Barton will look to continue its national leading 23rd tournament appearance Friday afternoon in a 4:30 p.m. serve against the winner of Northeastern Community College and Yavapai College as the Cougars advanced into the consolation semifinals with a no-contest decision against scheduled opponent Navarro College.
Hanna Miller and Mylena Testoni led a 4-0 Barton spurt early in the opening set giving Barton its' largest and eventual last lead of the set at 8-6. The Badgers clawed back rapidly claiming 11 of the next 12 breaking things open at 19-10. Barton managed to go point for point with Snow over the next six points before the Badgers shut the door with four of the final six tallies.
Each team rode 4-1 spurts to open the second frame knotting things up at 5-5. Snow launched a 7-2 stretch ballooning a 12-7. The margin hovered around five at 21-16 with Barton slicing back to within a pair 21-19 backed by three straight including Miller's second service ace in the match. Following a Snow timeout, the deficit shrunk to 22-21 before a dump kill sealed three straight by the Badgers.
A pair of Tasiah Nunnery and Maria Santo kills led a quick 4-0 Cougar start. Holding a narrow 10-9 advantage Barton padded on three straight with Carol Melo and Nunnery teaming up at the net for an assisted block. Barton remained on the plus side of the scorebaord stretching its' largest lead at 22-17 succeeding kills by Addison Crites and and Santos. Snow mounted one final push scoring six of the next nine pulling to within one 24-23 but a thunderous Testoni tomahawk out of the Cougar timeout rested any Badger rally.
The magic appeared lost for Barton in the fourth with Snow firing on all cylinders jumping out to a 16-8 lead riding eight straight and 10-1 stretch. The Cougars were unable to piece together multiple points over the final 11 points with the Badgers closing out the match taking the final four points.
A season worst .095 attack was one story of the night against a Snow squad that posts eight players over 6-foot or taller. The Cougars also did not help themselves by committing 23 errors, tying their fifth lowest mark of the season.
Seeing its eighth straight individual double-double game streak come to a halt, the Cougars were led offensively by Santos and Nunnery each finishing one shy of double-digit kills. Isabella Guedes led the offensive distribution tallying 18 assists with Kristen Jankowski adding solid bench production dishing out nine assists. Miller controlled the back line recording a team high 14 digs.