The Barton Community College women’s basketball team dropped its first conference game of the young season falling 55-50 Saturday evening at Butler Community College. Shooting just twenty-seven percent in the contest and de-spite being pounded on the boards, the Lady Cougars were nipping at the heels of the Grizzlies all night but just couldn’t get over the hump in suffering their fifth con-secu-tive loss in El Dorado. Barton drops to 2-1 in the conference play and 5-2 on the season while Butler picks up their first conference victory improving to 1-2 and 4-2 on the year. The Lady Cougars’ next contest will come Tuesday traveling to Liberal for a 6 p.m. tip at Seward County Community College.
Barton found itself quickly trailing 9-0 to start the game but behind the first of six Katrina Roenfeldt three-pointers on the night and five straight points from Regan Unruh, the Lady Cougars drew to within three by the mid-point of the quarter. Getting a defensive stop with a rebound, a questionable turn-over on Alexus Bryson gave the ball back to the Grizzlies with a subsequent trey pushing the lead back out to six.
The Grizzlies pushed the lead out to ten to begin the second with four straight then grew it to twelve before Barton would start to clamp down defensively and edged back into the contest. Beginning with a Roenfeldt three pointer and a Megan Jirak jumper, the Lady Cougars held Butler without a field goal for four minutes putting together a 10-0 run with another Unruh trey drawing to within 27-25 with under a minute to play. Ending the drought draining their own three-pointer, Butler then rebounded a quick Barton three-point attempt going coast to coast banking in a runner along the lane to take a 32-25 lead to the locker room.
Getting treys from Jirak and Roenfeldt early in second half action, Butler squeezed in a jumper to keep Barton at arm’s length before another Roenfeldt long ball cut the deficit to two with a little over six minutes left. But the next five minutes would keep the scoreboard stuck at 36-34 as neither team could score until a Raegan Sanchez’ jump shot took the lead to four. Butler would add another field goal to increase the lead to six as Barton closed out the quarter missing three attempts from the field.
A pair of Butler free throws increased the lead to eight but the Lady Cougars battled back getting two more Roenfeldt treys drawing to within five. The deficit quickly grew back out to nine in the next minute before an offensive rebound put-back by Baylee Robinson and steals with transition layups from Unruh and Bryson cut the deficit to three with 4:27 to play. Barton had its chances in the ensuing three minutes holding Butler scoreless but couldn’t convert multiple opportunities as Butler would hold on for the five point victory.
Knocking down 6-of-12 from beyond the arc, Roenfeldt led all scorers with eighteen points. Jirak and Unruh contributed ten each with Un-ruh leading the team with seven rebounds and three assists.
Raven Prince and Kyeria Hannah were the lone Grizzlies in double fig-ures with thirteen and twelve respectively with Dakota Vann and Sanchez each scoring nine but combined for eighteen rebounds leading a Butler domination of the boards 52-32.