A tale of two nights for the Barton Community College women's basketball team as the Lady Cougars split their two games over the weekend's Best Western and Cougar Booster Club Classic held at the Barton Gym. Getting off to a fast start in Friday night's first and third quarters leading to a 78-64 win over Redlands Community College, dismal shooting in the same quarters on Saturday led to a 78-63 loss to Northern Oklahoma College-Enid. The Jets finish the Classic with two wins improving to 3-0 on the early season while the Lady Cougars' weekend split leaves them at 2-1. Barton's next action comes Wednesday with a 5:30 p.m. tip hosting the junior varsity squad from Sterling College in their last tune-up before Saturday's start of conference play.
In Friday's fourteen point win, Barton shot nearly 51% for the game outscoring Redlands by ten in each of the first and third quarter efforts. Leading the way was sophomore Micaela Jellison's 6-of-6 shooting from the field including a deep second half trey finishing with eighteen points while Jaylin Stapleton was held to nineteen points below her season opening thirty point effort in adding eleven points. The duo provide a third quarter spark as Stapleton converted a hoop-n-harm pushing Barton's lead to double digits midway through the quarter with Jellison grabbing an offensive board with a stick-back at the buzzer leading Barton's 22-12 advantage which would be the final fourteen point margin. Irene Chukwudi also reached double digits in scoring ten while leading the squad with eight rebounds helping Barton to a six board edge on the glass.
Redlands' Shamika Smith would lead all scorers dropping 10-of-19 shooting from the field to finish with twenty-four points. Dawnell Vann also had a big night in the loss, registering a double-double sixteen point and ten rebound effort.
Saturday evening's start against the Jets got off to a rocky start as Barton would miss their first nine shots but a strong defensive effort kept the scoring margin at just six points. The Lady Cougars would fight through the shooting woes to grab two second quarter leads and felt pretty good headed to the locker room despite trailing by three.
The break was about the last good feeling for the Lady Cougars over the next ten minutes as another horrendous shooting start of missing their first twelve shots from field and twelve straight Jets points quickly ballooned the defect to fifteen. Barton would fight back in the fourth quarter cutting the margin to eleven but it would be as close as the Lady Cougars could get in the fifteen point defeat.
Held to four points through the first three quarters, Stapleton scored twelve in the final quarter to lead three Lady Cougars in double-digits with sixteen. With Barton finishing at 36.5% from the field, Juliana Chagas put together a great shooting night connecting on 6-of-10 from the field including 1-of-3 from behind the arc for a season high sixteen while Taylor Regan contributed eleven points and six rebounds off the bench. Also having a good shooting night in a coming off the bench role, Fatou Ndao scored eight on 4-of-6 shooting while leading the squad with a career high fourteen rebounds.
After scoring twenty-three points in the Jets' Friday win over Washburn University junior varsity, Division I transfer Andi Pierce was joined by two others in a balanced NOC-Enid attack with twelve points. Kammi Gruber buried 4-of-5 from long range for her points while Taylor Sylvester controlled the paint with twelve points to go along with sixteen rebounds. Euresia Brown added eleven with fellow starter McKenna Pulley contributing ten points. Just missing double-digits but provided nine points each off the bench were the efforts of Jacie Engler and Addi Meeker.
NOC-Enid opened the Classic on Friday with a fourteen point win over a quality Washburn squad. A seven point second quarter advantage gave the Jets an eleven point halftime lead but the Ichabods battled back in the third to make things interesting. Too many Jimmies-N-Joes led the way as NOC-Enid would hold off the ambitious junior varsity team for the fourteen point win.
Washburn nearly pulled off the upset in Saturday's first game of the day, leading Redlands by seven at the halftime break thanks to a 23-11 second quarter scoring advantage. The Cougars cut the deficit to three at the end of the third before Jamia Sheppard's thirty-five point night was too much in leading Redlands to a 24-14 final quarter output for the seven point victory.