Howdy y’all! Blue Dragon women’s basketball wins Region 6 title, qualifies for national tournament

By Colton Fast
Staff writer

SALINA – The Hutchinson Community College women’s basketball team won its ninth Region 6 championship in comfortable fashion Saturday at Tony’s Pizza Events Center, with an 82-66 win over the Barton Cougars.

HutchCC’s Mya Williams led the scoring yet again, tallying 21 points on an efficient 9 for 17 shooting. This being her 14th 20-plus-point game of the season, with half of those being at least 25-plus points.

Kalyn Ervin also stuffed the stat sheet with 15 points, eight rebounds and three steals with countless disruptive plays on defense that you can’t quite measure.

However this wasn’t a win carried by individual performances. The team as a whole evened the rebounding numbers on a glass-eating Barton squad that has used its rebounding as a point of emphasis all year with double-double machine Jenny Nkem Womsi.

A total of 20 turnovers was also forced by a stifling HutchCC defense.

“We really didn’t want them to get to the middle of the floor and just making their guards make plays for them. Their inside presence with Jenny is very strong” said Blue Dragons coach John Ontjes.

Coaching masterclasses such as that have been another reason for why the Blue Dragons have such a great season, especially when you consider the lackluster 7-4 start in conference play.

Williams said that at 70-54 January loss to Seward County was a wake-up call.

“I feel like that changed everybody’s mindset, and we just knew that we couldn’t let that happen again,” Williams said. 

From that game on, HutchCC only dropped one more game in another loss to Seward County, by five points. 

The Blue Dragons will be heading down to Lubbock, Texas, to start their national tournament run. If HutchCC is able to continue its highly-efficient scoring marks, with the turnover causing machine of a defense seen in Salina, the Blue Dragons will be primed for anybody in Lubbock.

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