Cougars fall to hot streaking Blue Dragons

The Barton Community College Volleyball team simply couldn't match the hot streaking Blue Dragons from Hutchinson Community College Wednesday night at the Barton Gym as the Cougars fell in three sets 20-25, 20-25, and 11-25.   The loss drops the Cougars to 3-5 in conference play and 6-15 overall while nationally receiving votes Hutchinson improves to 7-1 and extends their win streak to ten matches in improving to 14-6 on the season.

The Cougars built a couple four point leads early in the match before the Blue Dragons were awakened.  A pair of 5-0 runs by Hutchinson turned the Barton lead into a six point deficit at 14-8 as Head Coach Phil Shoemaker burned two timeouts to put out the fire.  Barton responded with a 7-2 run to tie the set but Hutchinson capitalized on three Cougar service errors down the stretch to win 25-20.

Hutchinson carried the first set momentum into the second jumping out to a 5-0 lead.  A Barton timeout settled the Cougars as they later went on a 5-0 run of their own to draw within 13-12.  After a Hutchinson timeout, neither team was able to string more than two points together very often the rest of the set.  Unfortunately for the Cougars, the Blue Dragons scored multiple points more often than Barton as Hutchinson buried the Cougars in a two set hole by winning 25-20.

Going for the sweep, the Blue Dragons hammered down with a pair of 4-0 stretches to put the Cougars in an 8-1 hole.  Two Barton timeouts did little to slow down the Blue Dragons as Hutchinson kept the throttle down with a 7-0 run in building a 20-6 advantage.  A deflated Cougar team hung tough down the stretch but the effort was a little too late in falling to the Blue Dragons 25-11. 

Barton will head to Liberal, Kansas, for a 1:00 p.m. conference match Friday against Seward County Community College and then remain in town to play in the Ozfest Invitational.  The Cougars will take on Western Texas College at 5:00 p.m. Friday with two matches on Saturday beginning with Vernon College at 11:00 a.m. followed by a 3:00 p.m. match against Frank Phillips.  All matches will be streamed live via the internet courtesy of Seward County Community College.  Links may be found by visiting www.BartonSports.com.

The Cougars next home match will be October 9 against Garden City Community College.