Cougars remain alone top West standings with easy win over Butler
When the Barton County Community College women's basketball team found itself alone on top of the Jayhawk West conference this past weekend it was the 1st time in 8 years that someone other than Seward County could claim that distinction. Wednesday night at the Barton County Gym, the No. 8 Cougars reaffirmed their grasp alone atop the West with a 58-46 win over Butler County. Barton, now riding the wave of a 15-game winning streak, moves to 17-1 overall this year and a perfect 4-0 in the West. Butler fell to 6-12 overall and remains at the bottom of the West with an 0-4 record. The Cougars will go after consecutive win number 16 Saturday when Hutchinson visits the Barton County Gym.

Highlights
It wasn't the prettiest offensive game at times between the two clubs. Barton trailed twice in the early stages of the game, but took the lead for good 7-6 on a Sharece Love free throw 4 minutes into the game and didn't trail again. An 11-1 run later in the half gave Barton a double digit lead in the contest, but Butler hung around. The Grizzlies cut the lead to 25-19 on a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer.

The Cougars came out in the 2nd half and re-established its double digit lead in the opening 8 minutes and never let the game get into single digits again. Barton took a 35-24 lead with just more than 13 minutes to play as Rachelle Love hit a lay-up on a pass from ChrisDell Harris to complete a Barton fast break. Barton would push the lead to as high as 16 points.

Sharece Love scored a career-high 14 points to lead the Cougars in the contest and also grabbed 8 rebounds to pace Barton. Brianna Buchanan joined her in double figures with 12 points. Barton hit just 32 percent of its shots but limited the Grizzlies to only 27 percent from the floor.

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

Next
Sat., Jan. 21 – v Hutchinson, 6 pm (Jayhawk West play