Cougars finally capture West home win with 71-64 win over Pratt
The Barton Community College women's basketball team earned a 71-64 win Pratt Saturday night at the Barton Gym to capture the Cougars 1st home West win of the year. The win for the suddenly hot Cougars was the team's 7th in its last 9 games. Barton even its record at 4-4 in the West and climbed over the .500 mark for the 1st time since mid November with an 11-10 overall mark. Pratt fell to 3-19 overall and 2-6 in the West. Barton now plays back-to-back games at two of the league leaders over 3 days. Those two have a combined mark of 40-3. It starts Monday at Concordia against Cloud County (20-2). Barton will then travel Wednesday to Seward County (21-1). Both games will tip at 6 pm.
Highlights
The Cougars played from behind much of the contest against Pratt, leading just once in the opening half and trailing by as many as 9 in the initial 20 minutes of play. A Hannah Rotolo 3-pointer from a step inside the midcourt circle banked in to cut the Pratt lead to 32-28 at intermission. It was a 20-minutes of play that Rotolo nearly single-handedly kept the Cougars in the game. She netted 10 points to go with 4 steals in that half. Raven Ward added 9 1st half points.
In the 2nd half, Rotolo got a lot of help from Alisha Fanshier and Annie Kassongo. The Cougars quickly evened the game at 34-all then took a 37-35 lead on a 3-pointer by Kyndall Bowens with 17:06 to play for the 1st lead of the game since 15-14. The Cougars would not trail again. Pratt would battle back to a single digit on a couple of occasions but the Cougars would not relinquish the lead. Fanshier and Kassongo combined for 24 of the Cougars 43 points in the half – the 3rd largest scoring half of the season for Barton. It is also the 2nd straight game Barton has had a 40-point half. The Cougars have a total of just 8 on the season.
Fanshier led Barton with 19 points – 15 in the 2nd half. The freshman from St. John added 4 assists and 3 steals. Raven Ward finished with 14 points while Rotolo matched her career-high with 13. Kassongo had a double-double for the Cougars with 11 points and 16 rebounds. It was her 12th of the season. Bowens added 10 points for Barton. Phylicia Freeman scored 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to pace the Beavers.
The Cougars have yet to lose on the road in the West but that will be severely challenged by this week's contests at the Thunderbirds and Saints. Barton will be back home for a date with Dodge City Saturday to conclude the busy week of action.
Stats
Stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports
Next
Feb 1 – at Cloud 6 pm (Jayhawk West contest at Bryant Gym in Concordia)