Combining for the most points in the twenty-three game historical series, the Barton Community College women's basketball team got thirty-three points from Mallory Miller to lead the Cougars' outscoring the Panthers of the Neosho County Community College 105-97 Monday night in Chanute, Kansas.
The victory closes out the pre-holiday schedule for the Cougars on a three game win streak improving to 3-1 in conference play and 9-2 overall while Neosho County suffers their fourth straight loss in falling to 1-3 and 4-10 on the year. Barton's next action will come December 28-29 in Hutchinson at the Blue Dragon Holiday Classic with the Cougars first game coming at 4:00 p.m. against Ellsworth Community College followed by Saturday's 1:00 p.m. game at the Sports Arena taking on Iowa Western Community College.
It was all Panthers early behind a 9-0 run in jumping out to an 11-2 lead. Beginning with a Miller trey to key a 7-0 spurt, the Cougars kept rolling adding ten more points in the 17-2 stretch to surge ahead 20-15. Neosho regained the lead with eight straight before Kolby Davis' buzzer beater cut the first quarter deficit to 23-22.
As both Cougar point guards sat the bench saddled with foul trouble, the teams continued the up and down pace into the second frame with Barton receiving critical plays by a host of bench players. Richelle Turney and Taylor Nichols free throws gave Barton a five point margin while a Paige Talbott and Fatou Ndao inside bucket kept Neosho at arms reach before Ndao took over the paint pushing the lead out to ten twice with eight straight points on the Cougar side of the scoreboard giving Barton a 52-45 advantage to the locker room.
Like the start of the game, the Panthers came out hot to begin the third quarter in taking over the lead on a 10-0 run until Miller responded knocking down consecutive long range shots. Neosho jumped back ahead with four straight but the Cougars rattled off seven of their own capped by Taylor Regan's three-point play. Jaylin Stapleton drew two offensive charge calls on the defensive end in the final three minutes with Miller going on a personal five point campaign including her fifth triple of the night to beat the buzzer for a 77-71 Barton lead.
The Cougars held off the Panthers surge throughout the final frame with the clinching moment coming just under two to play on a Neosho bench technical and Barton leading by four. Miller sank the charity throws then knocked down a baseline triple pushing the margin to 97-88 with 1:38 left. Stapleton and Turney free throws helped hold off a final Panther push securing Barton's perfect record of 23-0 in the overall series.
Miller finished 10-of-19 from the field including knocking down the six beyond the arc and sinking 7-of-8 from the charity stripe to come up one shy of the Goddard native's new career high. Regan posted the Albert sophomore's sixth double-double of year with a sixteen point, fourteen rebound effort in helping the Cougars finish even-up on the rebound battle with the Region's top rated rebounding team. Ten points came from a trio of players in Irene Chukwudi, Ndao getting all of hers in the first half, while Stapleton scored all of her ten in second half play. Turney added eight points with Davis putting seven on the stat sheet while hauling down a career high nine rebounds.
Neosho County had two players out front with big scoring nights, Chrissy Brown putting up twenty-four with Kelcey Hinz racking up twenty. Jessica Jones struck for twelve off the bench behind 4-of-8 shooting from behind the arc while Alexis Casher just missed a double-double with eight points and team high ten rebounds.