The Barton Community College women's basketball team avenged an earlier home loss by going into the Dennis Lesh Sports Arena Wednesday night to deliver Pratt Community College a 79-56 payback to leap the Beavers in the conference standings.
Now alone in third place of conference play at 10-5, Barton improves to 17-7 overall while Pratt slides into fourth at 9-6 and 16-7. Next up is Saturday's "Hall of Fame Day" contest hosting Dodge City Community College in a 5:30 p.m. tip-off. Induction of the 2019 Class will take place earlier in the afternoon at 2:00 p.m. in the Kirkman Activity Center with the recipients being recognized following the women's game and prior to the Cougar men's tip-off against the Conquistadors.
The night couldn't have started any better as the Cougars raced out to a 9-0 lead getting five points from Mallory Miller and four from Irene Chukwudi in the stretch.
Pratt recovered to close within two at the quarter break before completing a 10-0 run grabbing the opening bucket of the second frame to go out front 15-14. The Beavers led again at 19-17 but Miller's consecutive treys capped Barton's eight straight to open up a six point lead. Five straight by the Beavers cut it back to one but Madison Dirks' wide open three pointer and Richelle Turney's long jumper quickly pushed the lead back out. Pratt closed out the half with a long ball of their own to trim the Barton lead to 30-27 after the first twenty minutes.
Barton put the Beavers into a deep hole as the Cougars scored the first seventeen points coming out of the locker room, with a Pratt 1-of-2 trip to the free line with 2:07 left finally halting the run.
Outscoring Pratt 24-7 in the third, with four of the Beavers' points coming in the waning moment of the quarter, Barton increased the margin out to twenty-six points by the mid-point as Taylor Regan heated up after having been held scoreless for the game's first thirty-four minutes.
Unofficially, Jaylin Stapleton paced three Cougars in double-digits with sixteen points with Miller's four trey going towards a fourteen point while Ryen White added ten more to the total. Regan finished with six points to go along with hauling down eleven rebounds to help Barton control the boards by a plus-21 board margin.
Barton connected on 54% shots from the field, six three-pointers all coming in the first half, and stayed red hot from the charity stripe sinking 23-of-26 tosses.
Courtney Cleveland's fourteen points was the lone Beaver performance to reach double figures as Jazmin George and Tianna Tullis each coming up shy in nine point efforts with Janell Douvier contributing eight.