The Barton Community College women's basketball team held off a late charge Saturday night knocking off Dodge City Community College 62-57. The Lady Cougars only trailed early in the contest building up a ten point lead early in the fourth quarter keeping Dodge City at arm's length to win their fourteenth straight over the Conquistadors at the Barton Gym. The victory gets the Lady Cougars back to the .500 mark at 13-13 while improving to 5-10 in conference play and 12-13 overall while Dodge City drops to 16-9 and 6-8 in the Jayhawk. Barton will next hit the road for its next two games beginning with a Wednesday trip to Colby Community College for a 6:00 p.m. tip-off. The Lady Cougars will then head to Seward County Community College next Saturday before hosting its final regular season contest on Wednesday, February 17.
Dodge City opened up an early 7-2 before the Lady Cougars got rolling returning fire with nine straight ending the quarter with a 14-10 lead. The advantage was cut to two once but Regan Unruh's left wing trey from Dominique Baker with 4:56 to play increased the lead back out to five. The Conquistadors' late three point stretch in the final 1:30 cut in to the deficit as Barton went to the locker room leading 23-21.
The Conquistadors battled back early tying the contest but after the third and final deadlock at 8:10, two Baker free throws began a stretch proving the difference leading the eight point quarter advantage for the Lady Cougars. Getting consecutive treys by Alexus Bryson and Kilee Harris, Barton held Dodge City scoreless for over three minutes as Bryson added six more straight points helping to build a sixteen point lead with 1:50 to play. Five points from the Conquistadors' Alexus Johnson including a trey with sixteen seconds remaining in the third cut the deficit to ten.
Barton held Dodge City to seven to eight point range but four straight cut the margin to five until McKinna Kraus strong move in the low block momentarily stopped the run. Antania Newton's three-pointer with forty-eight seconds would draw Dodge City to within four but 4-for-4 free throws from Baker down the stretch sealed the victory for Barton.
Bryson led three Lady Cougars in double-digit scoring with fifteen points while also getting a career high eight thefts leading to eighteen Dodge City turnovers. Despite an off-night from the field, Baker's 7-of-9 from the charity stripe led to a thirteen point effort while leading Barton with four assists. Jalisa Jones came off the bench to score eleven while Harris and Megan Jirak tied for team high rebound honors with nine each.
Newton led Dodge City with eighteen points knocking down 3-of-6 from behind the arc. Johnson's 2-of-3 from long range added fourteen while Rachel Slattery recorded her second double-double against Barton scoring twelve points and hauling down twenty-three rebounds with nine coming off the bench.