With the Jayhawk West title pretty much out of reach the focus for the Barton Community College women’s basketball team has turned to finishing in the top four in the Jayhawk West and with it a home game to start Region VI play.
The Cougars kept a hold on the fourth spot Wednesday at the Barton Gym with an easy 74-56 win over Dodge City. Barton sits alone in fourth at the moment in the West with a 5-5 mark. The Cougars are 15-7 overall. Dodge City fell to 1-9 and 10-14. The Cougars are one game ahead of Pratt (3-6) in the loss column and two up on Garden, Cloud and Colby – all 3-7.
The Cougars, winners of four of their last five, will head to Garden City Saturday for a rematch with a Broncbuster team that beat the Cougars in Great Bend earlier this year.
“Saturday will probably the biggest game of the year to this point,” Coach Carter Kruger said of the rematch. “The winner will control their own destiny in regards to a chance to earn home-court advantage in postseason.”
Against the Conquistadors, Barton used a defensive stretch of four minutes late in the opening half to take control of the game. Barton led 22-15 following a bucket by Dodge with 8:46 to play.
That would be the last points Dodge City scored for more than four minutes. By that time Barton had built a 29-15 lead on its visitors. The lead grew to 18 in the opening half as Baton went to the locker room up 37-21.
Barton’s lead hovered around 20 points nearly the entire second half as the Cougars rolled to the conference win.
A couple Cougars turned in career nights. Freshman guard Indiah Cauley scored a career-high 19 points for the Cougars and pulled down seven rebounds. Sophomore post McKinna Kraus came off the bench to match her career-high with 11 points and grabbed a 2-year best eight rebounds.
“We had a lot of kids step up tonight and help us play well in all three phases of the game: offense, defense, and rebounding,” Coach Kruger said. “I thought we bounced back very well.”
KK Anthony was her usual good for the Cougars tossing in 19 points and grabbing eight rebounds. The Cougars did commit 17 turnovers – a problem that has plagued them of late.
“We still need to work on eliminating the careless turnovers, but I thought we did a great job of executing offensively while playing great defense,” Coach Kruger said. “We are pretty good when we play that way.”
The Cougars shot 45 percent from the field and out-rebounded Dodge 49-29.
Antania Newton led Dodge with 14.
Now the Cougars can turn focus to Garden City. Garden is the only team not ahead of Barton in the West standings to beat them this season. Garden won at the Barton Gym 52-47 a month ago to start a string of four straight losses for the Cougars.