Fighting against the turnover bug Wednesday night in Concordia, the Barton Community College women's basketball team battled from behind most of the night before succumbing to Cloud County Community College 65-58. Committing eight of their twenty-three turnovers in the third quarter resulting in a fifteen point T-bird lead, the Lady Cougars cut the deficit to four with two minutes remaining in the contest but couldn't put any more on the board dropping their third straight game. The Lady Cougars fall to 4-6 in Jayhawk play while dropping to the .500 mark on the season at 7-7 as Cloud County improves to 7-3 and 10-3 on the year. Barton will stay on the road for their next contest traveling to Pratt Community College on Saturday for a 2:00 p.m. tip-off at the Dennis Lesh Sports Arena.
Three Lady Cougars reached double digits led by Megan Jirak's thirteen points. One point behind was Regan Unruh's twelve and Baylee Robinson's ten points. Katrina Roenfeldt, Barton's leading scorer was held to a season low four points but led a 42-33 Barton rebound edge hauling down a career high fourteen and distributing a team high four assists and three steals.
Chelcie Kizart led all scorers with twenty-two points being joined by Kelsi Miller's fifteen and Erin Alexander's ten points to complete the Cloud County double digit scorers. Simone Walker led with eight rebounds with Kizart dishing out a team high four assists.
The Lady Cougars struggled to shake off the holiday break rust making just 3-of-15 from the field in the first eight minutes while Cloud County connected on half of their fourteen shots to build a 15-6 advantage. Barton got back into the contest taking the final five points of the quarter getting a pair of Robinson free throws before Unruh buried a left baseline trey buzzer beater drawing the Lady Cougars to within 15-11.
Two Jalisa Jones charity tosses completed the 7-0 run bleeding into the second before a five point T-bird spurt pushed the lead back out to seven. Again trailing by seven after exchanging buckets, Barton launched a 6-0 run beginning with a Robinson bucket and four Michaela Jellison free throws causing Cloud County to burn a timeout clinging to a 22-21 lead with 3:17 til halftime. A Jones 1-of-2 trip to the line followed by Micaela Jellison's offensive rebound then dishing to Jirak gave Barton its first and only lead at 24-22 capping the Lady Cougars' 9-0 run. Cloud would respond taking the next seven points tying it up one possession later then drained a three-pointer to beat the halftime buzzer for a 27-24 edge.
Robinson drew Barton to within one opening up third quarter but an 11-2 T-bird response quickly opened up a ten point spread. Jirak's jumper temporarily halted the run but with the Lady Cougars being plagued with seven turnovers in the first six minutes of play allowed Cloud to build a fifteen point spread. Consecutive three pointers by Lauren Welsch and Unruh cut the deficit to nine but five straight T-bird points kept Barton at bay before Welsch's second trey of the quarter put the difference at fourteen headed to the final frame.
Cloud kept the upper hand through the first six minutes holding the margin but the Lady Cougars had a final push to make things interesting. Four straight points by Robinson followed by Alexus Bryson's trey for her only points of the game and Jirak's long ball suddenly had Barton to within four in a matter of two minutes with 1:48 remaining on the clock. The comeback would fall short however, as Barton would miss out on their next two possessions with the T-birds running out the clock sending the Lady Cougars to third straight defeat.
The Lady Cougars will head to Saturday's contest at Pratt looking to not only pick up a much needed win, but to break a four game losing streak at Lesh Arena. The Beavers are coming off of a season low point production suffering a 76-28 loss Wednesday night at Butler Community College for its second straight setback falling to 2-8 in conference play and 3-11 on the season.