By TODD MOORE
Barton Sports Info
The 19th ranked Barton Community College volleyball team made it a short night Wednesday at the Barton Gym by rolling past Seward County Community College in straight sets 25-13, 25-22, 25-16.
Taking all three season meetings versus the Saints, Barton improves to 25-5 to march on to Saturday's 6:30 p.m. semifinals of the Region VI/Plains District Tournament against 4th seeded Butler Community College. Seward County ends the season at 13-17.
By virtue of its KJCCC title and its first-round victory, Barton continues to host the District Tournament with semifinal match one taking place at 4:00 p.m. with 7th seeded Dodge City taking on 3rd seeded Colby followed by the Barton-Butler contest. The victors will then advance to Sunday's 2:00 p.m. title match with an automatic NJCAA Division I Tournament bid on the line adding to the Championship fever.
Barton opened the night with a whopping .469 first set efficiency, finishing at an impressive .302 overall effectiveness for its best outing in the last 12 matches.
Setters Elena Stankovic and Maurin Reyes put up 19 and 13 assists respectively as the Cougars' serve receive had just one error in 49 attempts for a .980 success in keying the big offensive night.
Kassidy Nixon led with 11 kills on a .304 efficiency with Phoebe Reyes' 10 kills coming on a .409 clip. Nixon also collected a team high 11 digs in posting her 9th double-double of the year.
The Cougars' middles were also solid on the night with Anna Wierzbicki's .412 efficiency leading to 9 kills with Akeir Scales producing a .444 night of 4 kills.