The Barton women’s basketball team knew it had a tall task in front of it against the Seward County Saints. Like 6-7, 6-3 and three more 6-0 tall.
It proved to be a task too tall to overcome.
Seward left the Barton Gym with a 67-52 win over the Cougars in Jayhawk Conference action Saturday.
The loss leaves Barton with a 3-7 Jayhawk Conference record and 11-10 overall. No. 20 Seward remains in the hunt for a Jayhawk title with a 7-3 mark, two games out of first place. Hutchinson leads the conference at 10-1 with Garden City at 9-1 as team hit the midway point of the 19-game slate.
Barton was able to hang with the much taller Saints for the opening quarter trailing by just two after 10 minutes. Barton continued to hang around through the second quarter as well, down 27-20 at halftime.
The start of the third quarter proved to be the difference. Seward started on a 10-3 run and eventually got the lead out to 18 points. The Saints led 50-33 after the third period.
Barton had a rally in them, cutting the lead to seven at one point but Seward held off the Cougar comeback for the 15-point win.
Kilee Harris continued her good play with another double-double for the Cougars. The sophomore scored 11 points and grabbed a team-high 12 rebounds. Regan Unruh joined Harris as the leading scorer for Barton with 11 points while Jalisa Jones added 10. Dominque Baker led Barton with four assists.
The 6-3 Axelle Bernard was a force for the Saints. The sophomore from Belgium led Seward with 14 points, 17 rebounds and four blocks. Seward’s 6-0 freshman Clitan de Sousa from Mozambique scored 14 and 6-7 Poland freshman Joanna Grymek added nine points.
Despite not having an active player over 6-0 on the roster, the Cougars hung with Seward in rebounding. The Saints won that battle 40-38.
Barton will be on the road Wednesday with a trip to Concordia to take on Cloud County. Cloud is just ahead of Barton in the standings with a 5-5 Jayhawk record and 13-8 overall.