The shorthanded Barton Community College women's basketball team could not overcome a sluggish start Tuesday night on the road in Arkansas City, falling 63-52 at Cowley College.
The fourth straight loss drops the Cougars to 0-2 in conference play and 3-5 overall while the Tigers notch their first KJCCC victory of the season moving to 1-2 in league and 5-3 on the season. Barton will look to get back on track Saturday evening welcoming the 21st ranked Hutchinson Community College Blue Dragons in a 5:30 p.m. tip-off.
RECAP
Starting the night without their two leading scorers in the starting lineup, the Cougars were dug an early hole managing just five points through the opening stanza. Making her first collegiate start, Lili Shubert banged one of six Barton three-pointers during the night knotting it up at 3-3 with 8:07 to play. Unfortunately for the Cougars, back-to-back Cowley trifectas and an eight-minute drought prompted a 10-0 Tigers stretch and 13-5 opening frame deficit.
Barton scored four of the opening seven points of the second frame on buckets by Britney Schroer and Acorionna Lard, pulling the Cougars within seven but could not get closer. The Tigers heated up from long distance connecting on three straight three-pointers during an 11-0 run widening the gap to 27-9. Nearing the halftime buzzer, a 7-0 run drew Barton back to within 31-21 following four by Alissa Heskamp and three from Cora Anderson but a pair of Cowley tosses in the final seconds sent the Cougars into the locker room trailing 33-21.
A pair of 5-0 Tiger stretches in the opening four minutes of the third dug Barton into an 18-point hole. Mikaela Hall carried the Cougars back to within 47-36 with a personal 8-2 spurt with 2:24 remaining but it would be as close as the Cougars could get as Cowley responded with the final four points.
Barton's largest deficit came at the 7:23 mark of the fourth as the Tigers rang in their ninth three-pointer of the night taking a 56-37 lead. A personal 5-0 stretch by Erin Foxhall revved up a 9-2 close-out of the scoring for the Cougars capped by Jadyn Young's first collegiate splash from beyond the arc resting the final margin at eleven.
STATS
Hall posted the lone double-figure performance with 11 points while nine other Cougars found the scoring column. Shubert hauled down a career and game high 11 rebounds with Kirchhoff pulling in 10 rebounds and finishing a point shy of a double-double performance in scoring nine points.
Defensively Barton posted a solid performance behind a plus thirteen margin on the glass but the offense continued its recent struggles shooting 31.6% from the field for the second lowest mark of the season.
Baylee Fincher led the Tigers with a game high 17 points on 6-of-16 shooting from the field, Shamara Henderson added 12 points, and Milena Fromming scored 10 behind 3-of-8 shooting from behind the arc. Carson Dean and Martyna Kowalska paced Cowley on the glass each concluding with six rebounds.