Behind a defensive season low allowance of point production, the Barton Community College women's basketball team avenged an earlier season home loss to Northwest Kansas Technical College, leading throughout Wednesday night's rematch in Goodland to clamp down on the Mavericks 57-39.
Victors of four straight, Barton solidifies its third place conference standing at 7-3, one game out of first, improving to 8-3 overall while sending NW Tech to its third straight loss falling to 5-6 in both conference and on the year.
The Cougars welcome Pratt Community College to the Barton Gym for its next contest on Saturday in a 2:00 p.m. tip-off.
Queen Ulabo's eleventh career double-double performance led Barton scoring 17 points and hauling down 12 rebounds. Tiffany Dortland shared team high scoring with Ulabo on the 17 points, to go along with, an all-around game of 6 rebounds and 5 assists. Lyndi Rumford, who made her first collegiate start, was joined by Cora Anderson and Vanessa Oduah with six points each. Marliah Johnson in her sixth straight spot in the starting lineup drilled her first collegiate three-pointer for her lone points of the contest.
NW Tech lost their leading scorer Lauryn Vieira to injury early in the contest, was led by Chloe Andrew with 15 points.
RECAP
Barton never trailed Wednesday evening, scoring the first four points of the night in taking a 14-10 lead to the second quarter behind Ulabo's ten points. The Mavericks closed to within two in the early seconds of the frame before a Barton 8-0 run stretched it out to their largest of the first twenty minutes at ten points 22-12 with 5:38 remaining.
A pair of Maverick treys countered by a pair of Dortland jumpers shaved the margin to six, but a Ulabo free throw and Dortland bucket pushed the gap back to nine. NW Tech sliced the difference back to six late in the quarter with a chance to slice it even more but Ulabo rejected the attempt at the buzzer.
Only turning the ball over three times in first half action, Barton committed three in the first three minutes of the third frame. In part to the defensive play of Rebecca Leveque, the Mavericks only managed a bucket in the stretch to close within four. As NW Tech hung around and cut the gap to three with three minutes to go, four straight by Rumford, a pair of Dortland technical foul charity tosses, and Anderson's inside bucket gave Barton their then-largest lead of eleven coming late in the frame.
Scoring continued early in the final quarter as Barton scored the first seven, including Johnson's made triple, in ballooning the margin out to 47-31. Behind a 6-0 Maverick spurt with six to play, NW Tech's last surge cut it down to ten at 47-37. The Cougars put the defensive clamps on for the rest of the contest in outscoring the Mavericks 10-2 for the game's largest margin and final eighteen point victory.