Cougars lose at No. 22 Cloud; secure 8th spot in West for playoffs
The Barton County Community College women's basketball team lost their contest at Cloud County Wednesday night, but with other action in the Jayhawk West, locked down the 8th and final playoff spot from the West in the upcoming Region VI Tournament. Barton fell 64-52 in Arley Bryant Gymnasium at Concordia but thanks to a Butler loss to Hutchinson, earned the playoff bid. Barton is now 13-16 overall and 3-12 in the West. Cloud, ranked No. 22, finished its regular season at 24-6 and 11-5, good for 3rd in the West. Barton will travel to Coffeyville for 1st round action Tuesday at 7 p.m. Prior to that contest, the Cougars will host Dodge City Saturday at 6 p.m. to round out the regular season.

Highlights
The Cougars had a tough first half, hitting just 6-of-25 shots against a pressure defense from Cloud and found themselves behind 36-15 by intermission. The Cougars also had 14 1st half turnovers and were outrebounded 25-11.

The 2nd half, though was a different story. The Cougars never got close enough to put a large scare in Cloud County, but Barton did make the Thunderbirds take notice a couple of times. The 1st came after Barton put together a 7-0 run to cut the Cloud lead to 13 points at 40-27 with 16:36 to play. The Thunderbirds pushed the lead back to 18 points before 1 more Barton run cut it 13 again with more than 4 minutes to play in the contest. That would be as close as Barton got until the final basket of the contest made it a 12 point margin.

Barton played much better in the closing half, hitting better than 40 percent of its shots, turning the ball over just 5 times and matching Cloud rebound-for-rebound. The Cougars were led by Claflin freshman Amber Jeffrey who tossed in a career-high 16 points in the loss. It was the 2nd straight game she has reached double figures and posted a career-high. Freshman Carly Bloomfield, playing near her hometown of Clifton, scored 13. Brianna Willhite led 3 Cloud players in double digits with 18.

Stats
Stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Feb. 28 – v Dodge, 6 pm (Jayhawk West contest at the Barton County Gym)