The Barton Community College women's basketball team rode a twenty point halftime lead Wednesday night at the Barton Gym for an eventual 81-70 win over Coffeyville Community College.
Improving to 14-5 on the year, Barton stays in the mix of the West's top three in the standings at 13-5. Coffeyville slides to a current third place spot in the East at 11-5 and 12-5 overall.
Barton's next game comes Saturday at Pratt Community College in a 5:30 p.m. tip-off before closing out the regular season next week with home dates against 21st ranked Hutchinson on Monday and Dodge City on Wednesday.
Vanessa Oduah led all players in scoring with 27 points, flirting with a triple double in hauling down seven rebounds and dishing out seven dimes. Tiffany Dortland also had a big night in posting her first collegiate double-double by scoring 20 points behind 5-of-10 shooting behind the arc and helping Barton hold a +8 rebound edge in pulling down 10 rebounds. Queen Ulabo added 18 points with Cora Anderson scoring 8 points with 7 rebounds.
Paige Scott led the Ravens with 20 points as Nakia Cullom came off the bench for 18 points. Faith Simpson flirted with a double-double with 14 points and 9 rebounds while Kaylin Lay led all distributors with 10 assists.
The Cougars chalked up a season high three-point shooting percentage on the night at 47.1%, burying 8-of-17 behind the arc while NW Tech canned 9-of-39 shots for just 23.1%
RECAP
A 10-2 run including a Brennan Kirchhoff corner-pocket trey broke open first quarter action into a nine point lead, with a Dortland triple giving the Cougars a 20-13 advantage after the first ten minutes of play.
Oduah knocked down her first two shots to begin the second frame pushing the lead out to eleven. The margin hovered around that spread until the 3:29 mark on Coffeyville's last points of the half on a Amiya Josey three-pointer.
The Cougars owned the remaining second quarter action, scoring the final eleven points highlighted by a late Dortland trey and Lyndi Rumford's hustling offensive rebound putback at the buzzer for a twenty-point 44-24 lead.
Oduah and Dortland buried three-pointers to open the third quarter extending the run to seventeen straight. Cullom's jumper put a halt to the run while ending the Ravens' near six minute scoreless drought stretching across the quarters.
The Cougars took a 59-42 lead into the final ten minutes with five straight from Ulabo increasing the margin to twenty-two.
Coffeyville didn't fold up the tents, outscoring Barton 28-17 the final seven minutes. The Ravens countered Barton's five point spurt with five of their own then later strung eight straight drawing to within 70-56.
Oduah put the next four points on the scoreboard for Barton but the Ravens put twelve back on the visitor's side of the board slicing the gap to just seven with a minute to play. Perfect trips to the line from Oduah, Dortland, and Ulabo sealed the victory in the final minute with the Ravens closing out the scoring on a final bucket with six seconds remaining.