Another long streak by the wayside. The 2015 edition of the Barton Community College softball team is removing some unsightly streaks from their list. Thursday afternoon at Cougars Fields Barton put a halt to a second losing streak that had reached into the 20s.
Barton snapped a 20-game skid against Butler Community College in the opener of the Jayhawk West contest. Earlier this season Barton put a 24-game losing streak to Seward to bed.
Barton won that opener 11-3 but wasn’t able to sweep the conference leader, dropping the second contest 12-4. The split give Barton a 5-7 mark in the conference and 19-10 overall. The Cougars are currently fifth in the West. Butler is 7-3 in the West and 18-11 overall and now sits one game behind Seward.
“If we continually put the ball in play, we will find holes in defenses and they will make mistakes,” Barton assistant coach Anna Voss said. “That’s exactly what happened that first game.”
The Cougars took control early in the opener, putting up eight runs the first two innings. Barton trailed 2-0 into the bottom of the first when Kylie Everill belted a 3-run homer to left to score Bailey Hensley and Brianna Ward.
Barton struck again the second with the long ball as Erica Harper’s 2-run homer to right pushed the lead to 7-2. By the end of the inning Barton had an 8-2 lead on was on its way to the win. The game ended in the bottom of the fifth when Ward doubled in Hensley with no outs to give Barton an 8-run lead and end the game by the run rule.
Ward had a huge game at the plate with three hits, four RBI and a pair of runs scored. Posegate went the distance in the circle for the Cougars, striking out five and allowed just three hits to improve to 8-6.
The Cougars were looking for the sweep in the second game but a big fifth inning by Butler ended that hope.
Barton trailed 4-0 in the bottom of the third when Everill smacked her second 3-run homer of the day. This time she sent a shot to center scoring Hensley and Harper to cut the lead to a single run.
“Kylie had her long relaxed swing back yesterday and they kept pitching to her,” Voss said.  
That is where the game stayed until Butler scored eight runs in the fifth – highlighted by three consecutive home runs at one point.
“Our pitching staff started wearing out towards the end of that second game giving up hits,” Voss said.
The Cougars are in El Dorado this weekend to taking part in the BUCO Bash. Barton will play four games at the event – Northern Oklahoma-Enid, Jefferson (Mo) College, North Central Texas, and Northern Oklahoma-Tonkawa.
Barton will be right back on the road Monday for a twinbill at Oklahoma Wesleyan Monday before settling back into conference play midweek.