19th ranked Barton Volleyball opens conference with home sweep over Garden City #GoBarton

The Barton Community College volleyball team opened up the conference and home slate Wednesday evening with a straight set sweep over Garden City Community College (25-15, 25-15, 25-18).

Improving to 8-1 on the year, Barton will next make its second trip to McCook, Nebraska, in participating in the McCook Tournament on Friday and Saturday. The Cougars' first two matches begin with its third season's matchup against North Platte at 1:00 p.m. followed by a 5:00 p.m. tilt against Gillette College. On Saturday the Cougars will have consecutive matches beginning at 10:00 a.m. against Laramie County Community College with Southeast Community College wrapping up the weekend.

Naya Danenberg and Phoebe Reyes led the team with 12 kills each on .393 and .333 attack percentages respectively. Elena Stankovic's 21 assists with Maurin Reyes' 19 assists led the team's .343 attack with just 10 errors on 105 swings.

Defensively the Cougars were led by Clara Lindstrom's 15 digs and Kassidy Nixon's 13 digs with Abigale Hardison accounting for three of the Barton's five blocks at the net.

Barton scored the evening's first two points in front of a big home crowd support, Nixon picking up the first of her nine kills in the match, before the squad rattled off five straight to open up an early six point lead. The margin inched out to seven at 11-4 but quickly shrunk as Garden City began to find its stride on a 4-0 run cutting the deficit to three. Holding the Broncbusters at arm's length through the mid-set point, P. Reyes then took over accounting for three of the Cougars' five-point stretch growing the lead to 21-13. Following a Garden City point to halt the streak, P. Reyes and Anna Wierzbicki keyed the final four points with Danenberg putting the final touches on Barton's 9-1 set closeout.

Neither team controlled early advantage in the second set until Hardison's center attack led Barton on a 4-1 stretch to open up a 13-9 lead. The teams later traded three point spurts, the margin hovering around three before the Cougars closed out the set on a 7-0 run spread across multiple team contributions including Stankovic's second ace of the night leading the squad's six total for the match.

With their backs to the wall and going down a player due to injury in the set, Garden City battled tough in the final frame, erasing a three point deficit to tie it up at 12 and stringing another trio of points later in cutting the deficit to one at 17-16. Consecutive points by Danenberg on her season high 12th kill and service ace however swung the momentum back to the Cougars as Barton would add attacks from Mya Thompson, Nixon, and Hardison in Barton's scoring eight of the final ten points to wrap up the match.