Barton Volleyball holds off Colby in fifth set victory #GoBarton

A month after its first five set battle, Saturday afternoon presented round two as the Cougars and Trojans needed another tiebreaker with the Barton Community College volleyball team prevailing over Colby Community College 25-22, 25-14, 22-25, 18-25, 15-7.

The victory moved the Cougars into seventh place with three regular season matches remaining, improving to 4-9 in league and 17-11 while Colby remains in sixth slipping to 5-10 and 14-12.

Barton embarks on a two match road swing, Monday at Garden City Community College followed by a Wednesday trip to Hutchinson Community College before winding up the regular season with "Sophomore Night" in welcoming Dodge City Community College to the Barton Gym for a 6:30 p.m. first serve.

Changing up the offensive rotation, the Cougars hit for .265 led by the first collegiate double-double from Bennie Horsch in putting up career highs of 27 assists and 26 digs defensively with Iris Oosterbaan keying the second wave of the 6-2 offense with 22 assists.

Four Cougars recorded over ten kills, Buse Kocakaya and Ella Rumford with 12 each on .391 and .357 attacks respectively as Rumford reset her collegiate best in attack percentage, kills, and the target of 34 service receives while tying her best with 7 digs, 28 attempts, and one block.

Tasiah Nunnery also had a historic night climbing the career charts with 12 kills, to go along with 20 digs in posting her team leading 12th double-double of the year.

Molly Norris contributed 11 kills on a .229 attack, spearheading a solid defensive effort at the net with two solo and five assisted blocks in tying a career high seven walls of denial. Overall, the Cougars had three solo and eighteen assisted blocks for season second best 12 blockades, Beatriz Rissi also with five assisted with and Jada Davis chalking up four assisted as the duo combined for 11 kills from the offensive end.

Hanna Miller continued her expansion of the career leading dig total, adding a season second most 33 for a 6.6 digs per set average.

The afternoon appeared heading for a sweep, Barton taking the first two sets but the Trojans fighting back in taking the next two.

Barton needed a comeback in taking the first, trailing 16-10 the Cougars erased a later four point deficit to close out the set on a 9-1 stretch taking advantage of seven Colby errors in the process.

Fueled by a pair of Norris-Davis and Kocakaya-Davis assisted blocks, Barton doubled up the Trojans early to build out the lead to 11-4. The advantage grew to nine through mid-set, the first following a pair of Rumford kills then Rumford keyed a trio of points with another kill as Rissi teamed with Nunnery then Norris in pushing the score to 18-9. A Trojan point later, a pair of Nunnery kills increased the advantage to eleven as Barton would go on to win the set by the same margin on Kocakaya and Rumford attacks.

Colby flipped things around in the third set, getting on top stringing a trio of early points together then later tacking on another trio building a 17-11 lead. Barton began to fight back, rattling off five straight behind Nunnery, Kocakaya, and Davis kills but Colby temporarily kept the Cougars from tying it to hold a 20-17 lead. The Cougars then took four of the next five with strong net play to tie it up at 21 and again at 22 but Colby stood the charge in the must-win set by scoring the final three.

A 8-0 Colby run put the Cougars on the heels at 13-8, Barton grabbing the next two points, but the Trojans responded with the next three for a six point advantage. The Cougars cut the deficit to three twice but a late four pack of points pushed the gap to eight in the eventual match tying Colby victory.

Nunnery's kill and the duo block from Norris and Davis led a 4-0 Barton stretch in opening an early 5-1 lead. The Cougars maintained control the rest of the way, later pushing the lead to 13-6 following a Rissi kill and pair of Norris attacks with Norris putting the final dagger on the night with a match clinching court punisher.

Record Book Watch
Hanna Miller:
- 1st in career digs with 1,665
- 18th in service aces with 94, 1 shy of Alik Cardoso da Sa's 95 total from 2006-2007 seasons

Tasiah Nunnery:
- 4th in career digs with 1082, 135 shy of Karina de Oliveira's 1217 from the 2018-2019 season
- 11th in career kills with 765, surpassed Kara Robeson's 758 total from 2006-2007 seasons, 1 shy of Paula Caten's 766 set in 2002-2003 seasons
- 14th in service aces with 102, 2 shy of Juliana da Barros's 104 from 2010-2011 seasons.