Cougars serve up sweep over Cloud County advancing to fourth straight region semifinal #GoBarton

Aided by eleven service aces Tuesday night at the Barton Gym, the Barton Community College volleyball team advanced to their fourth straight Region VI/Plains District semifinals appearance by defeating Cloud County Community College 25-20, 25-16, and 25-18 in first round action.

The second seeded Cougars improve to 24-10 on the year, advancing to Friday evening's second semifinal match against the winner of 14^th ranked Seward County Community College and Hutchinson Community College.  The loss ends the 7^th seeded T-Birds season at 17-16.

RECAP
The night featured the constant battle at the net between Barton's nationally 6^th ranked efficient offense against the nation's 10^th best block brigade from the T-Birds.  Despite attacking below their average at .214, Barton held steady against the walls of denial, countering with timely distribution from setters Isabella Guedes and Mya Maxwell, serving up eleven aces, eight blocks, and 83 total digs.

Barton jumped out to a 10-4 lead in the first, outscoring the Cloud County 8-2 in the stretch.  The T-Birds cut the deficit to three a trio of times through the mid-set, the last coming at 15-12 before a 4-0 Barton spurt was highlighted by one of Maria Santos' set leading three kills increasing the gap back out to seven.  Getting back into the set outscoring Barton 7-2, Cloud County again drew back to within two as the teams traded attack errors.  From there Barton rolled out the set, getting a dual block from Victoria Da Silva and Santos followed by a Santos kill.

Trailing 2-1 for the second set in a row, Barton regained the early edge on Mylena Testoni's first of three kills in the frame plus three consecutive T-Bird attack errors.  Miscues would plague Cloud County, giving nine of Barton's first fifteen points via errors but still battled to a 15-tie.  As the T-Birds cleaned up the errors, committing just two more the rest of the set, Barton upped their game as well rattling off eight straight points with Tasiah Nunnery punishing the court for three kills.  Interrupted by a T-Bird tally, Da Silva took over scoring two of the final three points as Santos terminated the set for the second time in a row.

Cloud County had four leads in the match, two coming at 2-1 to begin each of the first and second sets and two coming in the final frame.  The Cougars prevented the deficit margin to widen on the first time by getting a wall of denial from Joelle LaForce and Jaden Boden on the while a T-Bird attack error broke the set's final tie at 12.  Guedes, who served up four aces on the night all coming in the third set, bookended two of those leading a 5-0 run breaking the Cougars in front.  Cloud Country tried to rally back on three straight, but a Santos kill followed by two more Guedes aces extinguished the rally.  Barton closed out the match on a 5-2 stretch on a Testoni kill, two Santos attacks, and the final nail being hammered by Jadyn Brown.

STATS
The Cougars balanced attack was led by Testoni's nine kills with Santos recording 8 and Nunnery with 7. Da Silva led the block party with three assisted and added 6 kills on a team best .385 attack while LaForce had 5 kills.

Guedes led the 6-2 attack with 26 kills, having her four match double-double streak end by recording just 3 digs.  Maxwell put up 7 assists in adding 6 digs from the defensive side.

Three Cougars had double-digit digs, led by Hanna Miller and Testoni with 23 each followed by Nunnery's 13.

The Cougars started off slow with a .111 attack with 6 errors in the first frame but continued to heat up throughout the match with .243 and .333 while limiting further mistakes in a combined 6 in the final two sets.  

Record Book Update
Hanna Miller:

• Now 3^rd in single season digs at 642, surpassing Giselle de Moura's 628 in the 2011 season 
• Continues to solidify her career 3^rd best total at 1136, within 81 of Karina de Oliveira's 1217 from the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

Mylena Testoni:

• Current 8^th place single season digs with 525, 16 from Mykela Riedl's 541 total in the 2014 season
• Now with 999 career digs, one away from becoming just the fourth Cougar in program history to surpass the 1000 mark joining Cristin Haines top 1361 total, de Oliveira, and Miller.

Tasiah Nunnery:

• Steadily climbing up the single season Top-20 chart, Nunnery is in the 8^th all-time slot with 759 career digs, trailing de Moura's 768 total recorded in the 2010 and 2011 seasons.