DODGE CITY, Kan. - Holding onto a 55-50 lead heading into the final 10 minutes of action, the Dodge City Community College women's basketball team found a way push through late for a 79-65 win over Barton County Community College to snap a two-game skid at the Student Activities Center on Wednesday, December 7th. 

DC3 is now 3-7 on the season and 3-5 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while the Lady Cougars slipped to 7-5 overall and 4-4 in conference play. 

The first quarter would be back and forth with the Conquistadors managing to come away with a 15-13 lead at the end of one. Keeping things close would continue in the second quarter as Barton would take their largest lead of the game at 19-15 thanks in part to a 6-0 run to start the quarter. DC3 would regain the lead with five points of their own before the two squads would trade leads a few times before the Conqs took the lead for good. After pushing the lead to seven, Barton would close out the half to trail by four at halftime. 

In the second half, the third quarter would be the closest of all four quarters in the game as once again Dodge City would push their lead to seven points and keep it within four to seven points. The Lady Cougars would appear to gain some momentum towards the end of the quarter, hitting two free throws in the final 25 seconds to trail by five with one quarter left. With the fourth quarter being a problem quarter this year, DC3 learned from their prior games to quickly push their lead to double digits at 11 points with 7:12 left in the game. Barton would get no closer than five points in the final five minutes of action as the Conquistadors would go nine of 16 from the field in the final quarter to close out the game. 

"Defensively we executed pretty well and did a great job in the second half of not letting Barton get to the line in the second half" said head coach Zach Loll in a post-game interview. "We made shots tonight which is something that we haven't been able to do lately, but as I have been telling the girls we we're bound to come out with a breakout game which is exactly what we did." A big compliment goes out to the girls tonight for believing in themselves and showing just what kind of team they can be." A win is a win and we will take them any way that we can get them right now."

Thanks in part to the 56.2 percent shooting in the fourth quarter, DC3 would finish 28-59 (47.5%) from the field and drain nine of their 18 attempts from deep. Barton would shoot just 36.5 percent (23-63) from the field and really struggle from the charity stripe, going just 15 of 32 (46.9%) from the line. 

The bulk of Dodge City's scoring would be done by Alexus Johnson (28 points) and Baily Shelor (22 points) who each played 31 minutes of action. The 22 points by Shelor is a career-high for the freshman while Brittany Leonard would also wind up in double-digits with 12 points. Dasia Johnson had a team-high nine rebounds. 

One more conference game before the holiday break awaits the Conquistadors, who travel to Cowley College on Saturday for a 2 p.m. tip-off in Arkansas City.