The Barton Community College volleyball team rebounded from its Wednesday night loss in Liberal to knock Garden City Community College from the conference unbeaten with a 3-0 sweep Saturday evening in Garden City.
The Cougars trailed only twice on the night, both early in the first and second sets, before rolling up the Broncbusters with a pair of 25-11 scores then wrapped up the night scoring the final five points of the 25-19 match clincher.
Moving into sole possession of 2nd place in the Division I standings, Barton improves to 4-1 in league play and 12-3 overall while Garden City drops to 3-1 and 7-7 on the season.
Barton's next two contests come at the Barton Gym beginning Monday hosting Butler Community College and Thursday against Hutchinson Community College. First serve slated for 6:30 p.m. for each match.
Mylena Testoni's second double-double in the last three matches led the Cougars with ten kills and thirteen digs. Testoni's .529 attack with just one error on seventeen swings, marked the sixth time of attacking over .500 thus far in the season.
Isabella Guedes led the 6-2 offense with 23 assists with Hanna Miller leading the backline with 14 digs as Tasiah Nunnery collected eleven. Joelle LaForce led the Cougars' twenty block party effort with five while Addison Crites, Maria Santos, and Jadyn Brown each put up four walls of denial.
Recap
Trailing for the first of only two times in the match at 2-1, Barton strung an early four point straight with Crites keying the spurt with big play in the middle on a pair of kills and an assisted block with Santos. Another five straight midway through the set tripled up the Broncbusters with Alyssa Herter serving up a pair of aces and LaForce's middle net influence on two assisted blocks and a kill. The Cougars wrapped up the set outscoring Garden City 6-1 as Santos had consecutive kills and Testoni finished off her three kill set.
More of the same transpired in the second with Brown sparking an early 5-0 run to break the Cougars away from a 4-3 deficit. Crites and Santos each had a big hand of helping Barton fully break away on a 6-1 spurt to double up the Broncbusters 16-8. Following a Garden City point out of the timeout, Barton closed out the frame with a 9-2 stretch as Testoni hammered down two of her set leading four kills.
Barton couldn't pull away from the Broncbusters until late in the third but would never allow Garden City to take the lead either. The Broncbusters had chances to pop ahead at 9-all but a service error spoiled the bid and again at 13-all, but Crites' kill squelched the attempt to move out front. A pair of points closing to within 20-19 prompted Barton's final timeout but a Garden City service error put the Cougars up two. Brown's kill and teamed block with Crites all but put the nail in the coffin up 23-19 as Garden City's last timeout didn't hold off the Cougars taking the final two match points.