Cougars sweep East foes in Jayhawk Shoot Out
After a start that has seen 5 ranked foes in the opening 10 games, the Barton County Community College women's basketball team was ready for a couple of games that ended in 20-point wins. The Cougars got just that this past weekend with a wins over Kansas City Kansas and Neosho County during the annual Jayhawk Shoot Out in Coffeyville. Barton rolled to a 73-46 win over KCK on the opening night of the Shoot Out then turned around and defeated Neosho County 77-49 during the morning hours of the event's final day. The wins ended a 2-game skid for Barton and ran the Cougars mark to 8-4 for the season. Barton still has two pre-conference games slated this weekend when the Cougars take on State Fair (Mo.) and Northeastern Junior College (Colo) at the Pizza Hut Classic in Liberal.

Highlights
A solid defense sparked the Cougars opening win of the Shoot Out, limiting KCK to 15 1st half points as Barton built a 37-15 advantage. The Blue Devils came out and knocked down a trey in the game's 1st 20 seconds for a 3-0 lead then went the next four minutes with 3 missed shots and 5 turnovers as Barton built a 10-3 lead. That lead grew to 22-9 then to 33-11 as the Cougars forced the Blue Devils into 20 1st half turnovers. For the game the Cougars scored 37 points off KCK turnovers.

The Cougars eased off the throttled some in the 2nd half but never let KCK inside the 20 points of the lead. Barton's biggest lead was at 27 points on several occasions in the half. Victoria Carlile paced a balanced Cougar scoring attack with 14 points followed by Brianna Buchanan with 13 and Vivian Ewalefo with 12. Brittany Ridley came off the bench to dish out 8 assists for the Cougars in the win.

Barton completed the weekend sweep with a 9 am tip off Sunday morning against Neosho County, who entered the contest with a 6-3 mark. Barton started the game as if it were 9 am, watching as Neosho bolted to an 8-2 lead just 3 minutes into the contest. The Panthers kept that lead for much of the opening half. Barton finally evened the contest at 22-all on a 3-pointer by Carlile with 6:04 to play. Barton took its 1st lead with at 28-27 with 3:29 to play when Carlile hit a jumper in the midst of a 10-0 run to take a 34-27 lead. Barton would trail the remainder of the way. In fact, the Cougars continued to build on that until it reach 31 during the 2nd half.

Buchanan this time paced another balanced attack for Barton with 15 points followed by Ewalefo with 14. Carlile added 13 Ashley Glen scored a career-high 10 off the bench for the Cougars. Also posting a career high was Ridley as the freshman point guard handed out 11 assists off the bench. Other numbers for the Cougars included hitting 42 pecent from the floor, the 2nd highest total this season; a 24-7 advantage in points off turnovers; 21-2 advantage in 2nd chance points and a 31-12 advantage in bench points.

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

Next
Fri., Dec. 10 – v State Fair (Mo), 2 pm (at the Pizza Hut Classic in Liberal)
Sat., Dec. 11 – v Northeastern (Colo), 2 pm (at the Pizza Hut Classic in Liberal)