Cougar Volleyball swept by Butler #GoBarton

The Barton Community College volleyball team was swept Saturday at the Barton Gym as the Grizzlies of Butler Community College took down the Cougars 27-25, 25-20, and 25-19. The loss drops Barton to 3-6 in conference play and 11-11 on the season while the Grizzlies fourth straight victory improves their conference mark to 6-3 and 16-6 overall. The Cougars will return to the court on Monday as Barton hosts Pratt Community College in a 6:30 p.m. first serve.

In a back and forth first set, a three point spurt flipped the tide late as Butler grabbed a quick 23-21 lead. Trading the next point, the Grizzlies had set point twice but the Cougars managed to tie it up for the twelfth time before two straight gave Butler the 27-25 win.

Butler broke a 5-all tie with a 4-0 run but following a Barton timeout, the Cougars responded with pair to cut the deficit in half. It would be as close as the Cougars would come the rest of the set as Butler broke it open with an 8-0 run to lead 17-7, then fought off a late six point Barton spurt in capturing the 2-0 match lead with the 25-20 victory.

Barton regrouped and looked poised to force a fourth set, getting out to a three point lead multiple times with the last coming at 12-9. The Grizzlies then took five-of-six to grab the lead before later tacking on a 4-0 run to break open a 21-16 lead. The Cougars countered with a trio of points to close within two but Butler closed out the match scoring the final four points.

Beginning the night with a .225 attack with fourteen kills, Barton would just have seventeen more kills combined in the final two sets as the Cougars cooled off for a -.075 second and .121 final frame to attack at just a .088 clip.  Laine Conceicao led the team with ten kills while Kelsie Antcliff had a solid game of eight kills on twenty swings for a team high .300 attack.