By TODD MOORE
Barton Sports Info
In a highly anticipated early battle for the KJCCC's driver's seat, the 5th ranked Barton Community College volleyball team assumed command with a Monday evening sweep at 6th ranked Colby Community College (25-23, 25-20, 25-14).
The 16th sweep of the season and fifth conference short night puts Barton atop the standings alone at 5-0 and 18-1 on the season in dropping Colby to 4-1 and 14-2 overall.
Barton continues its stretch of three road contests on Wednesday in a 6:30 p.m. serve at Garden City Community College before Saturday's 6:00 p.m. start at Hutchinson Community College. The Cougars' next home match comes on Wednesday, October 2, hosting Cloud County Community College.
Phoebe Reyes' .450 efficiency for 12 kills and Kassidy Nixon's 11 kills and 15 digs for her team leading 7th double-double led the Cougars' statline as Naya Danenberg's 5 kills on a .385 attack with 13 digs also produced a solid night.
Overall the 6-2 offense clicked at a .279 efficiency with the wealth spread across eight Cougars from setters Elena Stankovic and Maurin Reyes distributing 18 and 19 assists respectively.
Six rejections at the net were spear-headed by Mya Thompson's solo and three assisted walls of denial.
RECAPBarton led throughout before doubling up the Trojans 10-5 as five different Cougars chalked up kills with Anna Wierzbicki and Thompson putting up the first of the squad's attack preventions.
The gap stayed over three points the rest of the way until a 4-1 Colby run aided by a pair of Barton attack errors made things interesting at 24-22 but the Cougars caught a break on a Trojan service error ending the threat.
Like the first set, Barton jumped out to a 4-1 lead and a similar 11-6 cushion. Colby fired back taking six of the next seven to tie it, eventually taking their first and lone lead of the match coming on the top side of a 17-16 score.
Making a switch bringing Sara Zuluaga Nohava off the bench, the Cougars responded with the next two points for another 4-1 stretch regaining the lead before closing out the set on a 4-0 run.
Once again Barton got off to a solid 4-1 start to the third set, P. Reyes and Danenberg each with four kills before Nohava's continued spark teaming with Thompson for a pair of blocks pushed the gap to another 10-5 lead.
Novava's kill out of the Cougars' timeout halted a Colby 4-0 spurt as Barton maintained its three-point advantage to a 15-12 score.
From there it was all Cougars with Nixon leading the way with four kills in a 7-0 run and 10-3 closeout to the victory.