The Barton Community College women's basketball team opened up a nine point first quarter lead before tacking on more in each of the following two frames cruising to 73-61 win on Hall of Fame night over Dodge City Community College.
Winners of four straight Barton to open a two game lead for third place in the West at 11-5 and 18-7, the Cougars will head to Colby Community College on Monday for a 5:30 p.m. tip-off before turning its sights on Wednesday and Saturday's home contest. Barton's victory also snapped Dodge City's four game win streak to slide into fifth place at 8-8 and 13-12 on the year.
The Cougars began with the Saturday evening's first five points getting a Jaylin Stapleton layup in splitting defenders and a Mallory Miller's three pointer. Allie Baker's jumper cut the Barton lead to three but then the Cougars methodically pulled away while holding the Conquistadors to just eight points in the period for the nine point advantage.
Barton outscored Dodge City by two in the second before tacking on another nine points to the advantage in the third, pushing the margin out to twenty with 3:38 left from an 8-0 run, six coming from Stapleton.
Three points from Ryen White and a buried three pointer from Conner Keith early in the final frame expanded the margin out twenty-four at the 8:44 mark. Dodge City made a late run with ten straight points in slicing the margin to eleven with 1:17 to play but it was too little too late as Barton sank 3-of-4 free throws down the stretch to hold off the charge.
The Cougars had a balanced scoring attack of five players reaching double figures but the all-around play of Stapleton provided a big difference in the game as the 5'5" sophomore guard from Meade flirted with a triple double with twelve points, ten rebounds, and seven assists. Taylor Regan lead the squad with fourteen points, to go along with seven rebounds for the Region VI leader, while White, Irene Chukwudi, and Richelle Turney each contributed ten points each. Chukwudi also swatted away three shots to solidify her Region VI leading 2.1 blocks per contest.
Ashley Nelson and Fredrionna Adams led the Conquistadors with eleven and ten points respectively while Makaela Ewing joined the duo off the bench to additionally add nine points as the Dodge City bench pumped in 40 of the 61 points.