GREAT BEND, Kan. – No. 21-ranked Butler women's basketball drained a season-high 10 threes at the Barton Gymnasium on Wednesday evening, earning a last minute, 59-58, win over the Barton Cougars.
Butler (18-4, 12-4 KJCCC) earned a crucial KJCCC win over the Cougars, regaining their third-place spot in the league over the Cougars (17-6, 12-5). Butler snapped the Cougars five-game winning streak and swept the regular season series over the rivals from Great Bend.
J'unti Franklin helped the Grizzlies to the season-high mark from distance as she knocked down 6-of-8 from deep for a game-high 20 points.
"Franklin was huge tonight, knocking down threes all over the place," said head coach Mike Helmer. "It was a step that we needed to take to keep going and keep building,a nd I am proud of my team."
Butler trailed for a majority of the first half, but it was close throughout. Tatum Boettjer hit four threes for Barton in the first half. At one point, Barton led by 10 before the grizzlies nailed four threes to go ahead 28-27. The teams went into halftime tied 32-32.
The third quarter was not good to Butler as they mustered just eight points, being outscored 12-8. Barton entered the fourth quarter ahead 44-40.
The Grizzlies took an eight-point lead at 59-51 with 3:40 to go in the game as Brittanie Brickhouse hit her first three of the season. It was the last score of the game for Butler. Barton was able to whittle down the lead over the final 3:40. Vera Ojenuwa made a jump shot with 1:28 to cut it to 59-55 and Grace John hit a triple with 15 seconds left to make it 59-58 in favor of Butler.
The final 15 seconds were chaos. Maycee James turned the ball over with 11 seconds to Barton, and they immediately drove to the basket. Barton's McKenna Vogl was tied up by Butler forcing a timeout from Barton with 0.1 seconds on the clock. The inbound pass found Vivian Onugha for a layup that was made but the clock expired before and the Grizzlies came away with the win.
"We made some mistakes down the stretch that hurt us but I'm going to put that on me, we haven't practiced enough," said Helmer. "This is a tough place to play but our kids battled and responded."
Dayuna Colvin added 10 points, a team-high six rebounds and three assists. Maycee James had six points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals. Freddie Wallace added nine points and two rebounds.
Butler shot just three free throws (1-3) all game to Barton's 8-11. The Grizzlies coughed the ball up just eight times to Barton's 12. Each team scored 22 points in the paint. Butler was 10-30 (33.3%) from deep while Barton shot 8-19 (42.1%).
Butler returns to action on Saturday, Feb. 10th as Garden City vicits the Power Plant with tipoff set for 2 p.m.
