The Garden City Telegram

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Lady Busters tough out 61-54 victory over Barton

Published 2/13/2012 in Sports

By ADAM HOLT

aholt@gctelegram.com

It looked at first like it might be a laugher of a win. In the end, it was a victory that showed resolve and toughness.

The Garden City Community College women's basketball team moved to 7-4 in the Jayhawk Western Division, and 15-10 overall, with a 61-54 win over Barton at the Perryman Athletic Complex.

The Lady Broncbusters were up 42-33 with 10:51 to play in the game. By the 6:23 mark, the score was tied at 46.

Baskets by each team had the score tied at 48, when Barton turned the ball over and allowed Jasmine Moore to get a fastbreak layup and give Garden City a 2-point advantage again. By the time there was a minute left in the game, the Busters had a comfortable 59-51 lead.

"Jasmine Moore is a high-energy player," GCCC head coach Alaura Sharp said. "She's had that same open-floor layup, the same play and hasn't gotten it to go. I thought that we were going after she made that layup. I didn't think there was any chance that they would get back into it at that point."

The Lady Cougars got a 3-pointer from Shea Shoemaker with 3 seconds left for Barton's final points.

Much of the second half went slowly, as both teams exchanged fouls and free throws. Barton attempted 13 free throws in the second half, while Garden City went to the line 24 times in the half. The Cougars finished 13-of-22 from the line, while the Busters went 22-of-37.

While Barton was able to creep back into the game, Sharp was still happy with how her defense held.

"I thought the score, to not score for maybe 10 minutes where we didn't score and for them to not go on a huge run, says a lot about your defense," she said. "But it also says a lot about your offense. We had no flow, we weren't making our free throws. We were getting to the free throw line, but when you don't knock them down, it might as well be a turnover."

The Busters got big games from Moore, who had a game-high 17 points, and Ashley Walker, who added 16. Ten Busters scored in the game, helping make up for an uncharacteristically quiet performance from leading scorer Tamara Jones, who had just four points and didn't score until there was 8:36 left to play.

Walker scored 20 points in Garden City's loss to Hutchinson the game before, and Sharp was happy to see the sophomore respond with another big game.

"I think the biggest plus about it is the fact that Ashley Walker has had two good back-to-back games, she said. "She's really struggled in her two years here with consistency."

Dionne Harris and Devan Boeger paced Barton with 11 points each, and the Cougars' 6-foot-4 inside threat, Netanya Jackson, was held to eight points and attempted just four free throws.

The Busters were able to keep the ball from getting down low with an effective 2-3 zone defense, which did its job, aside from the hiccup when the Cougars clawed back into the game.

"This is the only team that we really run a lot of zone defense against, I thought it looked ok," Sharp said. "You can tell we're not really comfortable running it."

Garden City held a 37-29 lead at halftime, thanks in part again to Moore and Walker, who each had nine points.

Garden City went down 5-1 early, but after tying the game at 10, scored the next eight points of the game, in what looked like would be a routine win.

The Busters sit fourth in the division, just a half-game back of third-place Cloud County.

The Busters head to Colby for a 6 p.m. game on Wednesday against the sixth-place Lady Trojans.

See boxscore in Scoreboard, Page B2.

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