For three straight years the Barton Community College women's basketball team knocked at the Region VI title door. Saturday at Wichita's Friends University the door was kicked in as the 16th ranked Cougars prevailed 60-56 over Coffeyville Community College for its first region banner since 2008.
Victors of 12-of-the-last-13 games, the now 28-5 Cougars punched their automatic bid in returning to the NJCAA Division I Tournament held March 22-27 hosted by Lubbock Christian University in Lubbock, Texas.
Seeded 16th for the tournament, the Cougars will take on 17th seed Moberly Area Community College (28-3) in Wednesday's (March 22) opening 10:00 a.m. contest with the winner advancing to play top seed South Georgia Tech in Thursday's 2:00 p.m. second round.
Jenny Nkem Womsi's 17 points and 13 rebounds for her 24th double-double of the season led four Cougars in double digit scoring. Draining 3-of-6 behind the arc, Morgan Meyers added 13 points with Acorionna Lard scoring 11 points with a team high 3 assists. Brennan Kirchhoff finished with 10 points behind 8-of-9 from the free throw line, eight coming in the final 36 seconds with her lone loss coming after crashing to the floor on a drive to the hole in missing the And-1 opportunity but put Barton up eight with just over three minutes to play.
Kennady Roach's 4-of-9 behind the arc led to 17 points in leading Coffeyville with Bailey Layman adding 12 points and Jordynn Conner helping the Red Ravens have a plus-3 advantage on the boards in grabbing 11 rebounds.
The game was only tied three times with eight lead changes but neither team was able to grab a comfortable lead any point in the contest.
Coffeyville built their largest lead of six in the first quarter, breaking an 8-all score with a 7-1 stretch capped by one of the Red Ravens' seven three-pointers in the game.
Barton fired back with the next seven to reclaim the lead on Meyers' trey, the first of three in the contest as the Cougars as a team connected on 5-of-15 shooting behind the arc. Coffeyville answered on their next possession but Quezia Bertoni's fresh off the bench arc buster put Barton on top 19-17 after the first quarter.
The Red Ravens surged back ahead on consecutive three pointers to lead 23-19 but the Cougars held the challenger to just two more points in the final 8:23, getting an Alissa Heskamp old fashioned three-point play with 2:03 remaining to flip the lead for the last time.
Leading by one into the third quarter, the Cougars stayed locked in defensively in holding Coffeyville to just ten points. Adding six to their advantage behind the three-balls from Lard and Meyers, Lili Shubert's inside bucket late in the frame pushed the gap to seven.
Lard and Womsi's basketball grew the lead to eight with 8:28 remaining, again sitting at eight following another Lard drive to the hole with 6:25 to play and Kirchhoff's drive with 3:16 left.
The final eight point gap came with just over a minute to play, Bertoni making an athletic play to save an offensive rebound with her pass finding Lard for a quick touch setting up Womsi's layup with sixty-seven ticks left.
A Red Raven trey followed by a pair of Meyers missed free throws left the door ajar with Coffeyville adding a quick layup slicing the deficit to just three with 43 seconds remaining. Kirchhoff closed the door in the final thirty-six seconds going 8-for-8 from the charity stripe as Coffeyville put two late buckets on the board but wasn't enough in the four point loss.
Individual Record Book Watch and Impacts
Brennan Kirchhoff:
- 3rd best single season free throw percentage (.792 122-154)
- 6th in made career three-pointers (114 *23 from Kristine Silaraja's 127 total from 2007-09 seasons)
Morgan Meyers:
- 5th in made career three-pointers (126 *1 from Kristine Silaraja's 127 total from 2007-09 seasons, 33 from Mallory Miller's 159 total during 2017-19 seasons)
- 4th most single season three-point field goal attempts (215 *11 from Sonja Swopes' 227 total from 1993-94 season)
Jenny Nkem Womsi:
- 2nd in single season rebounds (434 *19 from Inga Muciniece's 453 total from 2007-08 season)
- 1st in season defensive rebounds (319 *Passed Inga Muciniece's 281 total from 2007-08 season)
- 2nd in career rebounds (728 *26 from Inga Muciniece's 754 total from 2006-08 seasons)
- 5th in career free throw attempts (310 *25 from Ashton Bruner's 335 total from the 2013-14 seasons)
- 6th in career made free throws (214 *5 from Taylor Regan's 294 total from the 2017-19 seasons)