5th ranked Cougars avoid letdown in sweep at Garden City #GoBarton

Coming off a big win Monday night at No. 6 Colby, the 5th ranked Barton Community College volleyball team avoided a letdown Wednesday night by registering its sixth conference sweep in a mostly dominant victory at Garden City Community College (25-13, 26-24, 25-14).

The victory improves Barton 6-0 in the KJCCC with its 17th sweep of the season improving its overall record to 19-1. Garden City falls to 3-3 in league and 9-6 overall.

Next up is the conclusion of a three-match road swing coming up on Saturday in a 6:00 p.m. first serve at Hutchinson Community College. The Cougars' next home match comes on Wednesday, October 2, hosting Cloud County Community College.

Phoebe Reyes again led the Cougars with 12 kills on a .269 attack as the squad hit at a .239 clip on the evening as setters Elena Stankovic and Maurin Reyes put up 16 assists each.

Mya Thompson's .400 efficiency led the team, putting away 8 kills as did Naya Danenberg as the reigning KJCCC Defensive Player of the Week collected 11 digs with two service aces.

Mina Kaneko led the backline with 20 digs with Kassidy Nixon close behind with 17 total.

RECAP
A 5-0 run put the Cougars up 5-1 early, later extending the lead to 10- 2 and 13-3 as all Garden City points came from Barton miscues.

Consecutive blockades by Nixon and Aubrey Olander sparked another four-pack of points to be followed after a pair of Garden City points with an additional 4-0 run pushing the margin to its widest of 21-7 in riding out the opening win.

The second set was a battle capped by a late incredible Cougar comeback to steal the set.

Garden City broke out to a 5-2 and 8-5 lead before Barton started to pick it up getting kills by Nixon, Thompson, and Danenberg in stringing six straight for an 11-8 lead.

The Broncbusters fought back taking ten of the next sixteen points to lead at 18-15. Following a pair of P. Reyes attacks, Garden City went on another spurt of three straight digging Barton a 22-17 deficit in using their last timeout of the set.

Reyes' kill coming out of the timeout ended the spurt with Anna Wierzbicki's center attack followed by Thompson's swung the momentum to the Cougars.

Following Garden City's last timeout, Danenberg and Thompson's attacks suddenly knotted things up at 22. The teams traded points to tie again at 23 and 24 before a Garden City receiving error gave Barton the lead with an attack error putting the final point on the visitor's side of the scoreboard and 2-0 Barton match lead.

Trying to fight through the disappointment into the third set, Garden City held a 5-4 lead and was tied at 6-all before Barton surged ahead on pair of points sparking a 6-2 stretch.

Leading 12-8 at the Garden City timeout, the Cougars would only allow the home squad to come no closer than four before stringing multiple stretches of two-point runs increasing the lead out to eight.

Closing the night on a 5-1 stretch, the Cougars secured its second straight win at Garden City improving their overall record at Conestoga Arena to 20-1.