The Barton Community College women's basketball team battled from behind most of Monday night's action but twenty-five turnovers and a late pivotal two minute stretch provided the difference sending the Cougars to a 67-61 rare home loss to Pratt Community College.
Barton's second straight defeat slides the Cougars to 4-2 in conference play and 11-5 on the year while the Beavers picked up their second straight win improving to 6-2 in the West and 13-3 overall. The Cougars next action comes on Wednesday with a trip to Dodge City Community College for a 5:30 p.m. tip-off.
The Cougars led just twice in the game, the first coming on Fatou Ndao's three-point play from Kolby Davis' pass putting Barton up 26-25 with 3:31 left in the second quarter. Pratt had opened the game with the first six points before racing out to 17-5 lead with 2:12 left in the quarter. Facing an eleven point deficit into the second quarter, the Cougars ran off the first nine points cutting the margin to 17-19 before eventually going ahead on the Ndao old fashioned play.
The Beavers closed out first half action with five straight, stretching the lead to eight with a 6-2 start to the third. Barton clawed back to within one with 3:22 but four straight by the Beavers kept the lead for an eventual six point margin after three quarters of play.
Barton seized the momentum in the first four minutes of the final frame, getting a pair of Richelle Turney buckets to go along with a three pointer, with Mallory Miller knocking down her third trey of the game capping a 10-3 spurt giving the Cougars their second lead of the game at 48-47 with 5:41 to play.
Exchanging three-pointers from the Beavers' Courtney Cleveland and Turney's third triple tying it up at 50, Pratt answered Barton's 10-3 from earlier with their own as Cleveland's second long range shot of the game pushed the lead out to seven with 2:38 left. Despite Miller canning her fourth trey on Barton's next possession, 7-of-8 free throw shooting by the Beavers down the stretch helped secure just the third Pratt win at the Barton Gym in forty meetings and the first since 2012.
Turney led all players in scoring with a career high twenty points on 50% field goal shooting and 3-of-7 from long range. Miller's four triples tallied twelve points while Taylor Regan contributed ten. Irene Chukwudi recorded three blocks and grabbed ten rebounds in leading a nine board rebound edge for the Cougars while Jaylin Stapleton and Regan dished out three assists each.
The Beavers also had three players reach double digits with Cleveland's eighteen points and seven rebounds leading the way. Jazmin George scored twelve, including a key three-pointer giving Pratt a five point lead with 3:46 remaining, while Janell Douvier added eleven.
Twenty-five turnovers compared to thirteen for the Beavers added to Barton's challenges throughout the night as the Cougars' eclipsed the twenty giveaway mark for the third straight game since the Christmas break.