The Barton Community College women's basketball team dug an early hole Saturday night in Liberal dropping an 82-65 contest at Seward County Community College. Receiving votes in the national poll, the Saints scored the first nine points and never looked back building an early third quarter twenty-seven point lead going on to win their fourth straight in the series. The loss snapped Barton's two game win streak dropping the Lady Cougars to 6-11 in conference play and 14-14 overall while Seward County improves to 10-5 in the Jayhawk and 18-7 overall. With only two remaining games in the regular season, Barton will play its final home contest this coming Wednesday as the Lady Cougars host Cloud County Community College in a 5:30 p.m. tip with sophomore recognition taking place immediately following the game.
The Saints came out on fire scoring the first nine points before driving buckets by Dominique Baker only temporarily halted the onslaught as Seward County would tack on another 8-0 run assuming early command. Behind a trey by Regan Unruh and buckets by Megan Jirak and Baker the Lady Cougars would cut it to eleven but a late trey took the lead back to fourteen at the quarter.
Four straight to open the second quarter increased the led but another Unruh trey led a 7-0 run getting Barton back to within eleven. It would be as close as Barton would get the rest of the night as the Saints buried any Barton momentum closing the half with the final straight including a trey at the buzzer taking a 48-24 lead to the locker room.
Six straight early in the third took the difference to a game high twenty-seven points but the never say die Lady Cougars outscored the Saints 20-13 the rest of the quarter. With both teams going deep in the bench in the fourth quarter, Barton would again outscore the Saints in the quarter before eventually falling by seventeen.
Unruh led three Lady Cougars in double-digit scoring tying a career high twenty points in part to 4-of-5 shooting behind the arc while leading the team with nine rebounds. Alexus Bryson added eleven dishing out a team high three assist while Tyanna Warren came off the bench scoring ten points in just seven minutes of action.
A career high twenty-seven points from Axelle Bernard led the Saints scoring pulling down a team high ten rebounds to post her fifth double-double of the past six games. Tiani White added sixteen with Daniela Galindo scoring fourteen as the duo combined for 6-of-12 shooting from behind the arc.