Team effort leads 5th ranked Barton Volleyball to sweep at Hutchinson #GoBarton

Solid contributions throughout the lineup made for an efficient Saturday evening trip to the Sports Arena with the 5th ranked Barton Community College volleyball team picking up another sweep in defeating Hutchinson Community College (25-17, 25-12, 25-17).

Barton improves to 7-0 atop the KJCCC and 20-1 overall as Hutchinson falls to 3-4 in league and 12-11 on the season.

Rolling through the week's three-match road swing, the Cougars will have a Wednesday 6:30 p.m. Barton Gym hosting of Cloud County Community College before another three-pack of matches in opponent venues beginning Monday, October 7 at Butler Community College.

Six Cougars collected atleast six kills while defensively three reached double-digit digs in a collective night ensuring Barton's 18th sweep of the season including all seven conference matches thus far.

Led by the 24 assists from Elena Stankovic and 17 from Maurin Reyes, the team 'quarterbacks' kept the Blue Dragon defense off-balance all night as the distribution helped produce an accumulated .327 efficient offensive attack.

Team high kills were shared by Aubrey Olander and Phoebe Reyes, Olander leading all players with an .833 attack on 12 swings with Reyes at a .280 clip on 25 swings.

Kassidy Nixon, Naya Danenberg, Anna Wierzbicki, and Mya Thompson each recorded six kills with Nixon and Danenberg helping the backline defense with 12 and 10 digs respectively as libero Mina Kaneko led all players with 15 total.

Along with the efficient attack, Barton also did damage from the service line with 11 total aces. Stankovic, who ranks second in the league, served up five on the night with M. Reyes adding three. Ranking third in league service, Nixon dished up two dimes with Kaneko chalking up one.

RECAP
The teams slugged it out point-for-point to begin the evening's action until Barton strung a pair of points opening up a 14-12 lead. Following a Hutchinson timeout and the Blue Dragons rallying for an eventual 15-all score, the Cougars went on a set defining 5-0 run in outscoring the home squad 10-2 in taking the opener.

Barton continued the momentum with a 3-0 start to the second, stretched the margin to four at 11-7, then outpointed the Blue Dragons 14-5 the rest of the way including scoring the final seven points for a commanding match lead.

Following Hutchinson grabbing the first point of the final set, Barton strung stretches of 5-0 and 4-0 for a 9-2 advantage. Six straight by the Blue Dragons cut the margin to one but Danenberg's kill halted the stretch with M. Reyes' pair of aces and a Wierzbicki kill pushed the gap back out to five.

Trading points with Hutchinson slicing the deficit to three, Barton dashed any hopes the match would go an extra set by taking the next five points highlighted by two Stankovic' aces in cruising to the win and the third straight of the series.