Barton falls short at Cloud to open West action

The Barton Community College women's basketball team fell behind 9-0 right out of the gates Wednesday night at the Arley Bryant Gym in Concordia and was never able to make that difference up as Cloud defeated the Cougars 66-56 in the opener for both teams in Jayhawk West play. Barton fell to 0-1 in the West with the setback and is now 7-7 overall on the year. Cloud, which began the year ranked, is now 10-3 and 1-0. Barton will travel to Liberal to take on Seward County Saturday. Seward lost its West opener to ranked Hutchinson on the road. The Saints are 10-5 overall.  

Highlights
Barton did not score the opening 3:30 of the game as Cloud built a 9-0 lead on the Cougars. Barton worked it down to 11-7 with 15 minutes left in the half and the remainder of the opening 20 minutes would be tightly contest with Cloud taking a 28-25 lead to halftime.

The Cougars again struggled to break the ice in the 2nd half, going scoreless for 3 minutes while Cloud pushed that lead back to 7 before Barton would score. The Cougars would hang around all 20 minutes in the 2nd half but Cloud played with a lead of 7-12 most of the final 10 minutes of the contest.

The big difference in the game came behind the 3-point arc where Barton hit just 1-of-18 while Cloud knocked down 8-of-21. Christina Caddy led Barton with 17 followed by Netanya Jackson with 16. Jackson led Barton with 8 boards as well followed by Caddy with 7. Daja DeHayward led a trio of Thunderbirds in double figures with 16 points, 7 assists and 4 steals.  

The Cougars will head to Liberal to take on Seward Saturday as each team searches for its initial win in conference play. The Saints – due to injuries – have been suiting up just 8 players in recent games. The Cougars have won at Liberal just once in the past 18 seasons. Barton will finally get a home game in the West Wednesday when the Cougars will host Dodge City in a 6 pm tip.

Stats
Stats can be found was www.bartonsports.com  

Next
Jan 8 – at Seward County 6 pm (Jayhawk West game at the Green House in Liberal)