Cougars upset bid of No. 5 Seward comes up short
The Barton County Community College women's basketball team had defeated a ranked opponent in each of the last 2 weeks. For a while Wednesday night at the Barton County Gym it looked as if the Cougars might beat their highest ranked foe to date. But it wasn't to be as No. 5 Seward County rallied from a 10-point 2nd half deficit to defeat the Cougars, 65-62. With the loss, Barton missed out on a share of the Jayhawk West lead, falling to 5-3 in the West and 15-7 overall. Seward County improves to 21-1 overall and a league-leading 7-1 in the West.

Highlights
The Cougars battled with one of the top teams in the country for all 40 minutes. In fact, Barton appeared to be in good shape with 8:35 remaining in the contest, leading by 10 points, 55-45. But turnovers and some key Seward County shots changed that.

The Cougars still lead 59-50 with 6 minutes to play but could only score 3 more points in the final 6 minutes of action. In fact, over the next 3 1/2 minutes of play the Saints outscored Barton by a 10-0 score t take a 60-59 lead with 2:30 to play. During that stretch Barton missed 3 shots – all 3-pointers – and turned the ball over 4 times.

But the Cougars wouldn't call it quits just yet. Barton evened the mark at 60-all when Sunshine Uli hit 1-of-2 free throws at the 1:58 mark. But that is when the Cougars began having free throw troubles. Uli missed the front end of a 1-and-1 to tie the score at 62 with 1:11 to play. Vivian Ewalefo had another chance to tie contest with Barton still trailing 62-60 with 20 seconds to play but again missed the front end of the 1-and-1. A pair of Seward free throws with 19 seconds left all but sealed the deal for the Saints.

The Cougars were led by sophomore Carly Bloomfield who scored a season-high 15 points on 3-of-4 shooting from 3-point land and 6-of-8 overall from the field. Mayowa Onikute scored 11 for Barton and Ewalefo grabbed 8 rebounds. Whitney Pegram had14 to pace Seward with Amanda Foster adding 10 points and 12 rebounds.

Stats
Full box scores and stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Sat., Feb. 5 – at Pratt, 6 pm (Jayhawk West contest the Beaver Dome in Pratt)