On a night the Barton Community College women's basketball team shot better from beyond the arc than from within, the Lady Cougars needed each of their eleven long balls in making a late comeback forcing overtime before hanging on for a 59-58 win at Independence Community College. Led by the seven three-pointers from Katrina Roenfeldt, the Lady Cougars answered a 14-0 Pirate run scoring the final five points of regulation getting a trey from Roenfeldt, a defensive stop by reserve Juliana Chagas, and a Regan Unruh runner with two seconds remaining to force the overtime. Barton continued the momentum into the extra frame tacking on four more points then held on the rest of the way to sweep the season series and snap a two-game slide in Independence. The Lady Cougars get back to the .500 mark in conference play with a three game lead for the seventh spot at 10-10 while improving to 13-11 on the year and sending Independence to their second straight loss falling to 7-13 and 10-14 overall. Barton will next take on Dodge City Community College in a 5:30 p.m. tip Saturday at the Barton Gym.
An 11-3 Independence start put the Lady Cougars in an early hole but Roenfeldt countered with eight of the first ten Barton ten points cutting the deficit to 15-10 before three straight Pirate points closed out the quarter. The teams battled back and forth throughout the second with a mini four point spurt midway through the quarter helped Independence expand the lead to ten before a late Jalisa Jones free throw sent the teams to the break with a 30-21 Pirate lead.
The third quarter was all Barton getting a twelve foot jumper from Jirak and Roenfeldt's third trey to open up the scoring. A 9-0 run midway through the quarter getting treys from Regan Unruh, Roenfeldt, and Jirak put the Lady Cougars on top before Lauren Welsch's bucket increased the lead to four.
Taking a 40-37 lead to the fourth having buried 5-of-6 treys in the third quarter, following a pair of Micaela Jellison free throws Barton tacked on six more points beyond the arc with Welsch canning one and Roenfeldt burying her sixth as the Lady Cougars extended the lead to nine with over six minutes remaining.
The Pirates took over for the next five minutes beginning with a trey of their own and going on a 14-0 run for a 54-49 lead as the clock ticked to 1:30 left. Once again Roenfeldt answered the call with her seventh trey of the game, the second time in her career of striking for the third best single game three-pointers made in program history. Following an empty Independence possession, Barton looked for the tie but Jellison's low block shot was rejected forcing the Lady Cougars to come up with the biggest defensive stop of the game. Insert reserve Juliana Chagas as the Lady Cougars pressured the ball with Chagas coming up with a huge deflection with Roenfeldt securing the Barton possession with just twelve ticks on the clock. Barton went to work coming out of the timeout sending the ball around the perimeter finding Unruh who took it amongst the trees putting up a floater between two defenders with two seconds left to force the extra time.
Buckets by Jirak and Baylee Robinson opened up the scoring in overtime and despite just a Welsch 1-of-2 trip to the line for the only other additional points, held the Pirates to just four points in pulling out the win.
Roenfeldt was the lone Barton player in double figures scoring a game high twenty-three points and distributing four assists to go along with seven rebounds and three steals. Unruh added eight points while Jirak finished with seven but grabbed sixteen rebounds including six on the offensive glass.
Jay-Nee Alston led the Pirates with fifteen points while Erica Moore added thirteen. Alex Akuen led a four rebound edge by Independence with fifteen rebounds and added seven points.
Barton shot just 26% from the field (20-76) connecting on 11-of-36 from behind the arc (30%) while Independence connected on 22-of-57 from the field (39%) but just 4-of-16 behind the arc (25%).