A banked-in three pointer in the closing seconds Monday night sank the Barton Community College women's basketball team 73-69 at Seward County Community College.
The loss drops the Cougars to 12-5 in Jayhawk West play and 13-5 overall while the Saints move back into a second place tie with Barton at both 13-5 in conference and on the year. Barton will return home Wednesday night for a crossover contest against Coffeyville Community College with tipoff slated for 5:30 p.m.
Tiffany Dortland led three Cougars in double figure scoring tying for a game high 20 points on 4-of-6 shooting from behind the arc, along with seven rebounds, four assists and three steals. Vanessa Oduah added 17 points with a team high six assists. Cora Anderson had a career night recording her first collegiate double-double adding new career highs in points and rebounds with 13 and 14 respectively.
Sierra Morrow led the Saints piecing together a double-double performance of 20 points and 11 rebounds. Sierra Lynch added 17 points while dishing out a team high four assists. Hulda Joaquim led the bench scoring with 10 points on a perfect 4-for-4 shooting performance to go along with five boards.
RECAP
The Cougars soared out to their largest lead of eight at 26-18 with 5:30 to go in the second quarter following a personal 5-0 spurt by Oduah. The margin would be short livid as Seward closed the frame with a 14-2 run taking a 32-28 advantage into the locker rooms.
Falling into their deepest hole of nine on two separate occasions Barton began the uphill climb with under five minutes to go erasing the deficit outscoring the Saints 12-0 taking a 50-47 lead into the fourth.
In the fourth quarter, Seward opened the stanza scoring seven of the first 11 points knotting things up at 54-54. The Cougars snatched the lead back just two minutes later as Anderson accounted for four straight Barton buckets handing the Cougars a 64-62 lead with 1:46 to play. A Saints And-1 by Sierra Morrow gave Seward a short livid lead until Queen Ulabo's 2-for-2 trip to the line with 50-seconds left provided the Cougars final lead of 66-65.
Hopes faded just eight seconds later as Madina Camara banked in a top of the key 3-pointer. A Brennan Kirchhoff trey with 16-seconds left gave Barton some life closing to within one. Ensuing a 2-for-2 trip at the line by the Saints a potential tying 3-point attempt by Dortland fell short as Seward converted 1-of-2 from the charity stripe sealing its' 73-69 victory.