The season ended Wednesday night in Liberal for the Barton Community College volleyball team in first round Region VI/Plains District play as 14th ranked Seward County Community College flexed to a straight set sweep 25-11, 25-15, and 25-18.
Barton concludes the 2022 campaign at 17-15 while the top seeded Saints improve to 28-6 in preparing to host the semifinals on Friday night against fourth seeded Dodge City who defeated Garden City 3-1 in their first round match in Dodge City.
Buse Kocakaya led the Cougars with six kills as Molly Norris recorded four and Tasiah Nunnery and Darby each had three. Kocakaya and Norris shared team high honors with two, Norris' pair of blocks coming as solo walls of denial, while Hanna Miller took off the libero jersey for the last time after adding 11 digs to conclude her program career leading total at 1712 and 5.30 digs per set.
The Cougars finished with 21 kills on a .184 attack with Iris Oosterbaan led the trio of setters with 9 assists.
After trading points to begin the night, Seward County strung four straight to open up a margin, increasing it later with other stretches of six, five and three points for a 21-7 lead. Beatriz Rissi's kill and a Seward County ball handling error was the lone Barton multiple points in a row as the Saints closed out the set on a 6-2 stretch.
Service errors by each team opened up the second with Seward County taking the next six. The Cougars received the benefit of six errors and a Norris kill to edge back into it facing an 11-8 deficit. From there Seward County tacked on another four points, keeping more than a six-point margin the rest of the way in rolling to a 10-point win.
Barton kept the early stages of the third close, getting a pair of Kocakaya kills in trailing 5-4. A couple of errors swung the momentum helping to put a trio of points on the board for the Saints to eventually methodically build a 20-11 lead. Led by Norris and Smith chalking up a kill each and combining for a block, Barton strung four straight to make things interesting at a five point gap. Trading the next two points, Seward County closed out the set 4-2 in ending the Cougars' season.
Program Record Book Impact
Hanna Miller:
- 7th in single season digs with 546 (Already has the 3rd and 10th most single season), passed Mylena Testoni's 540 from 2021 and Mykela Riedl's 541 in 2014
- 1st in career digs with 1,712
- 17th in service aces with 96
Tasiah Nunnery:
- 4th in career digs with 1121
- 8h in career kills with 789
- 13th in service aces with 105