ARKANSAS CITY — The road was not kind to the Barton women’s basketball team last season. Barton was just 4-10 on the road in the conference.

So starting Jayhawk Conference play with two straight road games is not what Coach Alan Clark would prefer this season.

But that is exactly the case for the Cougars. The first of those took place at Scott Auditorium in Arkansas City against Cowley – a team Barton had lost five straight games to.

Make that six straight as Cowley handed Barton a loss to open conference play, 90-73.

Barton is now 6-2 overall and 0-1 in the Jayhawk. Cowley is 2-0 in the Jayhawk and 10-1 overall.

Two keys to the game was a 9-0 by Cowley late in the third and 25 Barton turnovers that resulted in 34 Cowley points.

“The turnovers killed us,” Coach Clark said. “We just can’t turn the ball over like that and expect to win. When we didn’t turn it over, we did good things. But if you give up 34 points off turnovers on the road in this conference, it is hard to win.”

Barton led nearly the entire first quarter after Ryen White scored the game’s first seven points. Cowley momentarily took a 12-11 lead but that would be the only time in the opening 10 minutes the Cougars would trail. Barton led 19-16 after one.

The second quarter was almost the exact opposite. Cowley held a slim lead nearly all the way but couldn’t get separation from the visitors.

When Irene Chukwudi hit a layup with 2:20 left before half, Barton and Cowley were tied at 35-all. The Tigers went to half up, 41-37.

The third quarter was a slugfest. That is until that late run by Cowley gave the Tigers the game’s first double-digit lead. With Cowley up 51-49 and just less than two minutes to play in the period, Paige Granstaff took over.

Three 3-pointers by Granstaff in a span of about 60 seconds pushed the Tiger lead to 60-49 into the final minute of the third period. It was the first points of the game for the freshman from Texas. At the end of three, Cowley led 60-51.

“We battled hard for about three quarters but those three 3’s hurt us,” Coach Clark said. “We were right there in a position to win at that time.”

The Cougars got the lead down to six a couple times early in the fourth but they would not recover from that 9-0 run by Granstaff. Cowley eventually pulled away in the final 10 minutes for the easy win, scoring 30 in the final period.

White led Barton with a career-high 17 points followed by Taylor Regan with 16 and Mallory Miller with 14. Regan just missed a double-double with nine rebounds.

Cowley point guard Kedranea Addison led all scorers with 27 points. Brenda Da Silva added 20 and Granstaff finished with 16.

The Cougars will head to southeast Kansas to take on Coffeyville Wednesday night in Jayhawk play. That game should give the Cougars a good chance to pick up one of those road wins as the Red Ravens are an uncharacteristic 0-9 heading to Northwest Tech Sunday for a conference tilt.

Barton will close out the first semester with a home game against Independence Saturday. Both tip at 5:30 p.m.

Cowley 90, Barton 73

Barton   19  18 14  22 – 73

Cowley  16  25 19  30 – 90

Barton (6-2, 0-1) 73

White 6-10 3-3 17, Stapleton 1-8 4-4 6, Regan 5-8 6-6 16, Miller 5-11 0-0 14, Chukwudi 3-9 0-0 6, Turney 3-8 0-0 7, Hunt 0-0 1-2 1, Keith 0-0 0-0 0, Ndao 2-7 2-4 6, Dirks 0-1 0-0 0, Davis 0-0 0-0 0, Nichols 0-0 0-0 0. Totals – 25-62 16-19 73.

Cowley (10-1, 2-0) 90

Addison 9-18 5-7 27, Oravakangas 5-11 2-2 12, Follacchio 0-4 0-0 0, Perez 1-2 2-2 4, Da Silva 9-16 2-2 20, Agular 3-3 0-0 6, Granstaff 5-14 3-3 16, Nygard 1-3 0-0 2, Hrencher 1-4 0-0 3. Totals – 34-75 14-16 90.

3-pointers – Barton 7-22 (Miller 4-9, White 2-5, Turney 1-4, Stapleton 0-4), Cowley xx ().

Rebounds – Barton 47 (Regan 9), Cowley 33 (Addison 9). Assists – Barton 16 (Stapleton, Regan 4), Cowley 17 (Addison 6). Steals – Barton 4 (Stapleton 3), Cowley 16 (Addison 4). Blocks – Barton 1 (Ndao), Cowley 5 (Da Silva 4).

Turnovers – Barton 25, Cowley 12. Fouled Out – None. Technicals – None.