The Barton Community College women's basketball team came up short Wednesday night in Concordia as the Cougars were outscored by eleven in the final quarter of an 80-68 score at Cloud County Community College.
Barton drops to 4-1 in conference play and 11-4 overall while Cloud County improves to 5-2 out of the Jayhawk East and 12-4 on the year. The Cougars will have a pair of home contests coming up on the slate beginning with Saturday's hosting of Allen Community College followed by Monday's matchup with Pratt Community College. Tip time set for 5:30 p.m. at the Barton Gym for both contests.
The Cougars never led in first half action as Cloud County scored the final six points of the opening frame for a six point lead, stretching it to out ten after sixty seconds of the second quarter. The Cougars cut the margin to eight a number of times before making a run behind Jaylin Stapleton's four points and Ryen White's first of three treys on the night cutting the deficit to four. The final ninety seconds belonged to the T-birds in knocking down consecutive long balls to head to the break with a 41-32 lead.
Coming out of the locker room on fire, the Cougars scored eight straight in the opening seventy-five seconds with Stapleton and Irene Chukwudi dropping four points each. Following a T-bird bucket, the Cougars scored the next five with a Taylor Regan slash across the paint followed by Richelle Turney knocking down a deep three-pointer with five minutes left in the third giving Barton's its first lead. Another Turney bucket and a Fatou Ndao inside move pushed the Cougar lead to its largest of three with 3:55 on the clock but Cloud County's five point swing seesawed the lead as the team traded buckets in the final three minutes of the frame.
Outscoring Cloud County 21-13 in the third period, Barton carried the momentum early into the fourth with Ndao giving the Cougars their final lead coming at 59-58 with 8:15 remaining. Going cold for the next three minutes, the T-birds pounded the paint for six straight to regain the home margin to five.
The Cougars hung around for a pair of possessions but couldn't crack the three point deficit as Cloud County would essentially put the game away with a 7-0 stretch to open up a ten point lead with under three minutes remaining.
Stapleton again led the Cougars in scoring, sinking 8-of-10 foul shots on the way to a sixteen point night while just missing a double-double with nine assists to go along with five rebounds and two steals. Turney came off the bench for eleven points with the inside duo rotation of Ndao and Chukwudi producing ten points each while helping Barton win the battle of the boards with eight and seven rebounds respectively.
Emmiley Hendrixson did damage from the outside in leading all scorers with twenty-points by knocking down five of the T-birds' seven three-pointers. On the inside, Cassidy Haufler hurt the Cougars with eight of her ten rebounds coming on the offensive glass in tallying up twenty points for the double-double performance. Reigning conference player of the week Scout Frame flirted with a double-double with thirteen points and eight rebounds as Kamryn Collins was the fourth T-bird in double-digits contributing twelve points.