For the second time in as many games, the Barton Community College women's basketball team had to survive a fourth quarter push from its opponent to get a victory. The latest came Wednesday night in Goodland as the Cougars dominated the overtime frame for an 84-76 win over Northwest Kansas Technical College.
The victory keeps Barton alone in third place of the West standings at 7-3, improving to 14-5 overall while keeping the Mavericks winless on the season at 0-11 and 0-19. The Cougars next action comes Saturday at No. 11 ranked Seward County Community College in a 6:00 p.m. tip at The Greenhouse.
Barton trailed by four after the first quarter before Richelle Turney went on a personal 12-0 run to seize a Cougar lead of 27-19.
Leading by six at the halftime intermission, Barton opened it up in the third expanding the lead to nineteen through the mid-way point. Maintaining a fifteen point gap for the rest of the period, Barton kept the margin through the first four minutes of the final frame until the unthinkable began to transpire.
As foul problems began to mount and every break seemed to go against the Cougars, the Mavericks launched a 16-3 stretch being capped by a three-pointer with under forty seconds to play cutting the Barton lead to 70-69.
The Cougars made just one of two foul shots with 9.8 seconds to play and the Mavericks capitalized on the other end getting a big offensive rebound resulting in a pair of charity tosses from a 50% free throw shooter with 1.6 seconds left to force overtime.
Barton shook off the first forty minutes which also resulted in losing its leading scorer Jaylin Stapleton to fouls, grabbing the first eight points of the extra frame in proving the difference of escaping with the 84-76 victory.
Knocking down a perfect four shots from long range, Mallory Miller's seventeen points led three Cougars in double figures as Irene Chukwudi was close behind with sixteen. Turney finished with fourteen while Stapleton and reigning conference player of the week Taylor Regan finished with nine points each.