By TODD MOORE
Barton Sports Info
For the first time in conference play this season, Monday night in El Dorado the 5th ranked Barton Community College volleyball team dropped a set, but the Cougars responded by taking the next three for a 3-1 victory at Butler Community College (18-25, 26-24, 25-12, 25-20).
Barton runs its match unbeaten streak to nine straight, improving to 9-0 in KJCCC play and 22-1 overall while Butler drops to 4-5 in league and 12-14 on the season.
The Cougars conclude their brief two-match road trip on Wednesday in a 6:30 p.m. first serve at Pratt Community College with their next home match coming Wednesday, October 16, hosting 8th ranked Colby Community College.
Phoebe Reyes had a season high 18 kills on 43 swings to carry most of the workload with Aubrey Olander recording 9 kills on a game high .539 attack as each recorded a pair of blocks withing the Cougars' 9 total net rejections.
Also posting a season high, Elena Stankovic put up 30 assists in Barton's 6-2 offense as Maurin Reyes led the second wave with 14 assists helping the team's .221 overall attack percentage.
Anna Wierzbicki's six blocks led the net defense with an .462 efficient performance on the offensive side on 7 kills coming from 13 attacks. Kassidy Nixon had a .300 night with 8 kills on 20 swings, adding a block and 9 digs to help the defensive effort.
Leading the back line in sharing team high honors were Naya Danenberg and Mina Kaneko with 11 digs each.
Butler controlled most of the opening set on a match high .273 attack, building the first of an eventual seven-point victory margin at 13-6.
On the other side of the net, the Cougars committed eight of their twenty-two errors in the first set, hitting at just a .054 percentage.
The second set saw the teams commit a combined thirteen attack errors, trading point-for-point throughout the frame, with Barton battling back from a 23-22 deficit to come out on top 26-24 to even the match.
Barton took full control of the third set to take the match lead by committing just two attack errors for a .462 efficiency while the defensive effort helped limit the Grizzlies to a negative .045 with 7 errors and just 6 kills.
Putting down a match high 16 kills in the fourth set to outscore Butler's 12 kills, Barton completed the first set woe for the comeback victory for its second straight win at the Power Plant.