Leading throughout Tuesday's contest at the Barton Gym, the Barton Community College women's team knocked off unbeaten No. 8 ranked Seward County Community College 89-80. The victory was the first against a top ten ranked opponent since February 4, 2012, ironically also coming against Seward County, as Barton won by five in Liberal to defeat the No. 6 ranked Lady Saints. Barton improves to 3-1 in Jayhawk play and 6-2 on the year as Seward County drops to 3-1 and 5-1 overall. The Lady Cougars will take on its second unblemished opponent on Saturday as Barton travels to Cowley College (4-0, 8-0) for a 5:30 p.m. tip at the William S. Scott Gym in Arkansas City, Kansas.
Barton scored the first four points and never looked back as the Lady Cougars busted open a fifteen point lead closing out the quarter with eight straight points.
Shooting just 11% from the field in the first ten minutes, Seward County heated up in the second as did the Lady Cougars in a combined fifty-three points with Mollie Mounsey's trey with 1:25 left cutting Barton's lead to twelve into the halftime locker room.
Mallory Miller was the story of the second frame for Barton and the game as the Goddard freshman seemed to respond to each Seward County run by burying a three-pointer. Knocking down 4-of-5 from long range, Miller would set a new career high later in the fourth finishing with twenty-seven points on 10-of-13 from the field including two more second half makes behind the arc.
The Lady Saints strung points together in the third to continue to cut into the deficit but once again it was a Miller and fellow freshman Jaylin Stapleton rising to the challenge as Miller converted a hoop-n-harm and Stapleton draining a pair of her eleven made free throws on the night.
Juliana Chagas consecutive drives to the hole in opening up the final quarter put a halt to another Seward County run as the Lady Saints scored five straight in closing the gap to nine.
With Barton's largest lead of seventeen coming in the third, Seward County continued to bomb away from long distance in chipping into the deficit as the Lady Saints knocked down three in a row midway through the fourth. The margin would have been seven but Jeanna Dixon's fifth trey of the year coming in front of the Barton bench kept Seward County from seizing more momentum.
The Lady Cougars would then turn the ball over four consecutive trips down the floor but defensively limited the Lady Saints to just two points in that span until Lexi Hernandez buried her third long ball of the night cutting the margin to five with just 2:25 to play.
Miller had the answer for the Lady Cougars knocking down her sixth trey of the night and big defensive block by Chagas leading to a pair of Stapleton free throws quickly pushed the lead back out to ten.
Mounsey's trey to cut it to nine with 52 seconds left would be as close as Seward County would come down the stretch as the Lady Saints missed its final three of thirty-nine long range attempts while Barton sank 6-of-8 throws from the line to seal the victory.
Stapleton's twenty-three points including 11-of-12 knockdowns from the charity stripe concluded the double-digit scoring for Barton. Chagas finished with nine while Regan and Micaela Jellison contributed eight each as the duo combined for eighteen rebounds with Regan again just missing the double-double having pulled down a career high eleven boards. Getting seven points and leading Barton to a 47-26 edge on the glass, Fatou Seck Ndao came off the bench to haul down twelve including four on the offensive glass.
Mounsey's nineteen led three Lady Saints in double figures with the combined 7-of-17 long distance shooting of Amy Scott and Hernandez contributed sixteen and eleven points respectively coming off the bench.
Set to face its third straight opponent to be picked in the top four of the conference's predicted order of finish, Barton will next head to Cowley College looking to snap a three game losing streak against the Lady Tigers. Cowley has been impressive to open up conference play with two home wins and two on the road with the latest coming Tuesday in a twelve-point victory at Butler Community College, a Lady Grizzly team Barton defeated on Saturday with a buzzer beating Miller trey.
Other Game Notes:
- Barton's victory snapped a six game losing streak to Seward County and six straight to the Lady Saints at the Barton Gym
- Barton now leads the overall series 47-41 including 26-15 at the Barton Gym
- Barton was 24-of-30 from the charity stripe which is a season high in each category
- Barton's nine point win was the largest against Seward County since a twelve point victory in 2008 at the Barton Gym