Big Second Half Pushes Seward to Win
| Final | 1 | 2 | T | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Barton Community College (18-10, 6-6) | 19 | 23 | 42 |
|
Seward County Community College (24-4, 9-3) | 25 | 44 | 69 |
It was a tale of two halves for the Seward County Lady Saints on Wednesday night in the Greenhouse as they used a stifling defensive attack to hold visiting Barton to just 19 first half points and scored 44 points in the second half to run away from the Lady Cougars 69-42 to clinch home court advantage for the 1st round of the upcoming Region VI Tournament.
Seward started slow as they managed just one field goal in the first three minutes of the game as they fell behind 5-2. They finally got a little something going to take their first lead at 6-5 and after a Barton score, Fabiana Monte connected on a three to put the Lady Saints back in front 9-7. Later on, Brianna Scott stepped up and knocked down a three from the top of the key to put Seward in front 15-9 at the first half media timeout and as Barton remained ice cold shooting the ball, the Lady Saints stretched their advantage to 18-9 with 7:55 to go in the half as Shanise Brooks put together an old fashioned three point play inside. A 5-0 Barton run cut Seward's lead to 18-13 two minutes later, but the Lady Saints pushed their lead to double digits for the first time at 25-15 as Kyndal Davis connected on a free throw with 3:34 left in the half. The Lady Saints would not score for the rest of the half, but Barton was only able to cut their lead to 25-19 in that span and that is where the teams went to the locker rooms, with Seward up six.
The stat sheet was rather empty at the half as Seward shot just 30% from the field and Barton even worse at just 24%. Both teams turned foul shots into anything but free throws as the Lady Saints 43% was actually better than Barton's 39% mark at the line. Scott led all scorers with just 7 points in the half.
Barton started the second half where they closed the first, on a 4-0 run and in the blink of an eye, it was a 25-23 game. A big three from Monte pushed the Seward lead back to five and broke a 5:45 stretch for the Lady Saints without a field goal. The Lady Cougars once again narrowed the Lady Saints gap to 30-26, but an offensive rebound and score from Korina Chapman spurred an 8-0 run for the Lady Saints to give them their largest lead to that point in the game at 38-26 with just over 15:00 to go. Seward began to pull away after that. Another three from Scott made it 46-30 and Monte scored on a 10 footer to push their lead to 20 at 50-30 with 9:00 remaining. It was all Lady Saints from there as Barton couldn't find a way to score and even when Seward missed, they got second chance opportunities on the boards. The Lady Saints wrapped up a 69-42 win as the final horn sounded and put their stamp on a home playoff date on March 1st.
Seward finished the game shooting just under 40% as a team, but the Lady Saints shot 48% in the second half and managed 40 field goal attempts in the period thanks to 11 second half offensive rebounds and 25 offensive rebounds on the night. Barton was dreadful offensively, shooting just 23% on the night and turning it over 18 times to the Lady Saints. Scott led all scorers with 14 points and also added 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 steals on the night. Brooks worked in an 11 point, 11 rebound double-double for Seward and Alana Simon and Korina Chapman both finished with 11 for Seward in the win.
The Lady Saints move to 24-4 on the year and 9-3 in Jayhawk West play, sweeping the season series with Barton, while the Lady Cougars drop to 18-10 overall and 6-6 in conference action. With the win, Seward is ensured of a top 3 spot in the Jayhawk West standings, meaning that they will open the Region VI Tournament at home on March 1st against either the #7 or #6 seed from the Jayhawk East.
Seward will look to lock up the #2 seed in the standings on Saturday when they make their longest road trip of the conference season to Cloud County to take on a Lady T-Birds team in Bryant Gymnasium. The Lady Saints return home for their final regular season home game of 2014 next Wednesday when they host Pratt on sophomore recognition night in the Greenhouse.