A seventeen point first quarter lead ended up falling a few points shy of an upset Saturday night at the Barton Gym as the Barton Community College women's basketball dropped an 81-80 loss to 6th ranked Seward County Community College.
The loss snapped Barton's five game win streak as the Cougars slip to 12-6 in third place of the Jayhawk West and 19-8 overall while the Saints' 19th straight win stays tied atop the conference standings at 18-1 and 26-2 on the year.
Next up is a trip to Colby Community College on Monday as the Cougars and Trojans will tip it off at 5:30 p.m. at the Community Building in a rescheduled date from February 11th's cancellation due to weather conditions.
Barton was clicking on all cylinders for the first nine minutes in building a seventeen point lead with 1:14 in the quarter. The Cougars were a torrid 50% from the field, draining 4-of-5 from behind the arc getting a pair from Mallory Miller and Richelle Turney.
Behind eight straight points from the Saints' Silvia Veloso, four on either side of the quarter break, Seward County was beginning to gain momentum. Chipping away at the deficit, Ali Lucero's triple cut the margin to single digits with 1:03 left in the frame with Aquila Mucubaquire's deep buzzer beating trey over a Barton defender sent the Saints rolling into the locker room trailing by just six.
A six point Saints' stretch sliced the margin to just one midway through the quarter but the Cougars fended off the charge with seven straight in the next sixty seconds for an eight point lead.
The Cougars took a five point edge to the final frame but a 9-2 Saints' surge capped by Kalen Green's three pointer gave Seward County its first lead of the game coming at 7:31 left in the contest.
A pair of tough Turney jumpers in the lane of either side of Karolina Szydlowska tied the game for the final time with 6:23 on the clock before the Saints' six straight put Barton in a hole. A Jaylin Stapleton layup and two Ryen White free throws brought Barton back to within one with 1:39 to play but Seward County was able to string four straight to hold off the charge. Stapleton's deep trey at the buzzer came up a point shy on the scoreboard as Seward County escaped the Barton Gym in sweeping the season series.
Turney led all scorers on the night with twenty-five points as Barton just had two players reach double digits. Stapleton continued her assault on the Barton record book sinking 7-of-9 from the charity stripe towards a twenty-point night with five assists while Taylor Regan finished a point shy of a double-double with nine points to go along with fourteen rebounds to lead a seven board advantage over the Saints.
Seward County was led by the twenty-four points from Veloso with Green and Szydlowska each coming off the bench to score twenty and thirteen points respectively.