It has been a rugged five days for the Barton Community College women’s basketball team. About as tough a 5-day stretch as any team in the nation will see this season. It came to a conclusion Wednesday night with a loss Hutchinson, 73-45 at the Barton Gym.
The loss dropped Barton to 1-4 in the Jayhawk West and 11-6 overall while No. 2 Hutchinson remained unbeaten at 4-0 and 18-0. It was the fifth game for Barton in nine days. The Cougars now get a week off to regroup before heading to Colby.
“There hasn’t been a more difficult stretch for a team since I started coaching in the Jayhawk six years ago,” Coach Carter Kruger said. “We are disappointed by the results, but we have to keep getting better. Hopefully this experience will toughen us up for the stretch run.”
It was five days which saw the Cougars take on a pair of Top 10 teams and a third which started the season ranked in the Top 10. It started on the road Saturday at Butler, a pre-season Top 10 now 13-4 on the season. Two days later the Cougars battled No. 8 Seward County (16-1) before concluding two days later with No. 2 Hutch. That is a combined (47-5).
“I continue to be pleased with the effort that our kids play with night in and night out,” Coach Kruger said. “We’ve played three top-ten-caliber teams in five days and our kids have fought each of them for 40 minutes. That effort will be rewarded down the road.”
The Cougars hung around the powerful Blue Dragons in the opening stages of the contest trailing just 12-11 nearing the midway points of the opening half.
That would be the extent of that, however. Hutchinson put together a 12-1 run over a five-minute stretch to double-up the Cougars, 24-12. The lead continued to grow in the final seven minutes of the opening half, reaching 24 by halftime.
The Blue Dragons went to the locker room leading 42-18 and were never challenged in the second half.
The Cougars hit just 33 percent from the field and committed 22 turnovers in the loss. Barton did force the Blue Dragons in to 16 turnovers of their own but converted that into only 10 points.
Philadelphia freshman guard Indiah Cauley led the Cougars with 11 points followed by Phikala Anthony with nine. It was the first time this season Anthony failed to reach double figures in a game. Anthony, a sophomore from Memphis, also paced Barton with five rebounds while Cauley added four steals. Freshman point guard Dominique Baker had three assists to lead Barton.
Kalani Purcell led the Blue Dragons with 17 followed by Cynthia Petke with 16. Clemence LeFebvre added 13. Purcell and Petke each had nine boards as well.
Barton can now regroup for a week before closing out the first half of the conference season against a trio of teams with a 6-7 combined conference record instead of the trio they just faced that is 11-1 in the conference. That begins Wednesday when Barton travels to Colby to take on the Trojans.