A valiant effort came up shy Wednesday night at The Power Plant as the Barton Community College women's basketball team saw 13th ranked Butler Community College pull away in the fourth quarter for a 61-54 victory.
The loss drops Barton to 3-3 in conference play and 4-3 on the season as the defending Region VI Champions win their eighth straight over the Cougars at the Power Plant improving their unbeaten marks to 6-0 and 7-0 overall.
Barton will look to get back on track in Saturday's home 2:00 p.m. matinee matchup against Cloud County Community College.
A night that saw only the starting five reaching the scoring column, three Cougars touched double figure scoring. Tiffany Dortland and Queen Ulabo led the Barton scoring contributing 15 points each, as Ulabo notched her second double-double of the season pulling down a team high 11 rebounds. Vanessa Oduah rounded out the double figure scoring adding 13 points, to go along with her team high four assists. Marliah Johnson and Cora Anderson rounded out the Barton scoring adding nine and two points respectively.
Three Grizzlies reached double figures with Skyla Knight leading the team with 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting. Tamara Nard added 13 points with a team high seven rebounds and Mekayla Furman added 11 points off the bench contributing to a 22-0 Butler bench advantage.
A 9-2 stretch for Butler in the opening four minutes built the lead to seven. Barton countered with four straight to close the gap to within three but the Grizzlies held off any surge taking seven of the final nine points grasping a 15-8 first quarter lead.
Oduah supplied a spark into the Cougars offense in the opening three minutes of the second quarter knocking down a pair of triples during a personal 7-0 spurt tying the scoreboard at 15 each. Butler would take the next four points before Barton pulled twice within one over the final three minutes but could not get the go-ahead bucket as the Grizzlies took a 26-22 lead to the break.
Trailing by five with 8:08 to play in the third, a four spot from Dortland clawed Barton back to within one again at 29-28. Butler stretched the margin back to five on two separate occasions but the Cougars continued to keep things in reach scoring the final five points of the third knotting things up at 37-37.
Unable to take a lead in the prior three quarters, Johnson leaped Barton over the hump scoring the first four points of the final frame giving the Cougars their first lead of 39-37 and largest lead of 41-37 just 24-seconds later. Unfortunately, the Barton lead would last just under the next two minutes as the Grizzlies stormed out of the cages utilizing a 14-2 run creating a 51-43 lead with 4:14 to play.
Trailing by as many as eleven with two-minutes remaining, the Cougars trimmed the deficit to six following five straight from Ulabo. Needing a defensive stop with a chance to cut it back to a one-possession contest, a Grizzlies offensive rebound with 49-ticks left damaged the upset bid as Butler hit 3-of-4 from the stripe down the stretch expanding the final margin to seven.