It was a great effort, but it came up just short.
The Barton Community College women’s soccer team nearly became the first team to hand Hutchinson a Jayhawk Conference defeat but it wasn’t quit meant to be.
The Lady Cougars took the Blue Dragons into overtime, but in that overtime period it was Hutchinson which scored a goal to leave the Barton Sports Complex with a hard-fought 2-1 win.
“We had some good performances by some of our players,” Barton head coach Aaron Avila said. “But not enough players stepped up. We were very inconsistent throughout the game and part of that had to do with the pressure the opponent put us under.”
The Lady Cougars led much of the contest after scoring early in the first half.
Maria Munoz scored her third goal of the season just 13 minutes into the contest when she beat Hutch goalkeeper Jennifer Currie from the top of the box. Her shot went into the top, left corner to give the Barton a 1-0 lead 13 minutes into the contest.
That lead held for the entire first half and most of the second half as well.
It wasn’t until the 67th minute that the 17th-ranked Blue Dragons were able to even the score.
Jen Rogers tied the contest on a free kick from just outside the penalty box with 23:18 left in the game.
The contest went to overtime tied at one as neither team was able to break through for a late-game deciding goal.
The Blue Dragons closed out the West battle late in the first overtime when Claire Taylor ended the contest with 2:49 left in the first 10-minute extra frame.
Karrie McNutt led a run down the middle of the field and found Taylor just outside the box.
Taylor slipped past the Lady Cougars and was able to get off a shot on the left post to beat Barton keeper Maria-Elena Garcia for the win.
The win kept the Blue Dragons unbeaten in the Jayhawk with a 6-0-1 record.
Hutch is now 7-1-1 overall and leads the conference with 19 points. The Lady Cougars fell to 2-3-1 in the Jayhawk and 5-5-2 overall. Barton is tied for seventh in the conference with seven points.
“We will just need to keep improving and working harder during training,” Avila said.
Barton will be back on the pitch Tuesday when Cowley College visits in the Lady Cougars next-to-last home contest of the season.