Cougars hold off Cloud County in fourth set victory #GoBarton

The second time through the Jayhawk schedule and the Barton Community College volleyball team completed the season sweep over Cloud County Community College 25-16, 24-26, 25-17, and 25-19 Wednesday evening at the Barton Gym.

The third straight victory keeps the Cougars' a game out of first place in the KJCCC standings at 6-1 and 15-8 overall on the season while the T-Birds' three match streak ends dropping to 1-7 in league and 10-10 overall.

Barton will next travel to Liberal on Saturday for a 6:00 p.m. first serve at 10th ranked Seward County Community College. The Cougars took the earlier September 13 match at the Barton Gym with a 15-11 fifth set win to snap a nine match home losing streak to the Saints.

The Cougars were efficient in their attack all evening, finishing their 135 swings on a .341 percentage for their best effort in the last fifteen matches.

Maria Santos led the efficiency at .448, recording five of her season high 15 kills in the first frame helping Barton turn a two point margin to six by kick starting a Cougar 4-0 mid-set spurt. Barton turned the set behind that key stretch, widening the gap to 23-15 behind strong net pay and a .438 overall efficiency.

With most everything clicking in the first set, the lights went out to begin the second frame as service receive errors put Barton quickly behind on the scoreboard. Facing a pair of five point deficits, Santos pair of kills along with a pair of blocks by Victoria Da Silva helped spark a Cougars comeback as a pair of Mya Maxwell service aces capped four straight tying the set at 16. Following a Cloud County timeout, the T-Birds temporary retook the lead but a pair of attack errors and a Tasiah Nunnery kill put Barton out front 19-17. The Cougars maintained the lead before taking set point behind Mylena Testoni's kill at 24-21 but couldn't shut the door as the T-Birds stormed back with five straight to steal the set 26-24.

Cleaning up the service receive and attack leading to just a .200 efficiency, Barton fired back in the third set for a match high .538 percentage.

The outside attack of Santos and LaForce put Barton out front early on a 6-0 stretch for a 12-8 lead, holding off any T-Bird charge getting strong net play by Addison Crites and Buse Kocakaya for the 2-1 match lead.

Barton cooled back down in the fourth but was able to string seven straight early in the frame for an 11-3 advantage to dig the T-Birds a big hole. Cloud County cut the deficit to 21-18 late but a Nunnery kill and Hanna Miller service ace pushed the lead back out as LaForce buried her ninth kill of the match on a .304 percentage as Barton closed out the match with four of the final five points.

Nunnery finished one behind Santos on the game high kill chart, recording 16 on a .406 attack and leading the team with 24 digs in notching her third straight and 10th double-double of the year.

Testoni joined Nunnery with a double-double, putting down 10 kills on just one error and collecting 15 digs to go along with two blocks and three of the Cougars' eight service aces. LaForce led the team's block party with five as Crites recorded four including one solo.

Posting her first collegiate double-double in Barton's last match, Maxwell made it two in a row in putting up 22 assists and defensively chalking up 12 digs and two service aces. Isabella Guedes led the first wave of the 6-2 offense with 29 assists and five digs while Miller charted 20 digs and a pair of aces.