The Barton Community College women's basketball team jumped all over No. 20 ranked Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in Friday night's first quarter to capture an 87-60 victory at the Barton Gym on the opening day of the Best Western and Cougar Booster Club Classic.
A 6-0 start to the game and an early 14-2 advantage led by Mallory Miller's five points put the Lady Norse on their heels with Barton not letting up. A second trey by Miller capped an 11-0 run to widen the lead to twenty with a minute remaining as Kolby Davis offensive rebound and put back ended the scoring with the 27-5 margin.
Barton added one to their margin in both the second and third quarter before seven straight began the final frame. Consecutive inside buckets by D'Shonda Hunt gave the Cougars their largest lead of thirty-three with 3:13 remaining in cruising to 2-0 on the year.
Jaylin Stapleton and Fatou Ndao led five Cougars in double-digits with fourteen points each with Stapleton coming up with seven of the squad's fifteen assist while Ndao hauled down seven boards to lead a Barton 41-29 advantage on the boards. Madison Dirks canned a pair of treys off the bench for eleven points while Richelle Turney and Irene Chukwudi added ten with Chukwudi wreaking havoc in the passing lanes in creating three of the Cougars' three steals.
NEO's Jo'Nah Johnson led all players with nineteen points while Megan Jackson and Kiarra Brooks added twelve and ten points respectively.
In earlier action, No. 13 Hutchinson Community College also got out to a big first half lead to rout Murray State College 88-65. Three of the twelve scoring Blue Dragons reached double figures with Dejanae Roebuck leading all scorers with twenty-two while Makayla Vannett and Jada Mickens contributed sixteen and ten respectively. Murray State had four in the double digit scoring column with Hannah Wade and Aaliyah Endsley leading with thirteen each while Toni Greene and Maddie Jessepe added twelve points each.
Barton will next take on Murray State in the 5:30 p.m. game of day two as Hutchinson and NEO will square off at 1:00 p.m. in the battle of ranked teams.
