Hutchinson CC Sports Information

The scenarios aren't too hard to figure out. Win a pair of games this week and the Hutchinson Community College women's basketball team will be crowned the 2019 Jayhawk West champion.

Getting to that desired outcome will be easier said than done.

The No. 10-ranked Blue Dragons first must battle a hot Barton Cougar team at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the Sports Arena. A Blue Dragon victory would most likely set up a winner-take-all showdown for the conference crown on Saturday at Seward County.

Wednesday's game will be broadcast live on Blue Dragon flagship station KHUT-FM (102.9) and on sister stations KWBW-AM/FM (1450/98.5) beginning at 5:25 p.m. Glen Grunwald (play-by-play) and Rusty Hilst (analysis) will have the call. The game will also be videostreamed live on the Blue Dragon Sports Network (through BlueDragonSports.com) at 5:25 p.m.

With two games to play in the regular season, No. 10 Hutchinson and No. 6 Seward County (the new rankings will come out Wednesday) are in a dead heat in league play at 18-1. The Saints, who play Northwest Tech in Liberal, have the direct tiebreaker at the moment with the Dragons after their Feb. 2 win at the Sports Arena. Barton is locked into the No. 3 slot in the Jayhawk West at 13-6, three games ahead of fourth-place Pratt and five games behind the Dragons and Saints.

The Blue Dragons (27-1) won their fifth game in a row on Saturday after 75-62 victory at Colby. Milan Schimmel had 17 points and Mikayla Vannett had 14 points to lead the Dragons on Saturday. Hutch had a 28-point lead with 2:10 to play before seeing that margin get trimmed to 11 midway through the fourth quarter.

Barton (20-8) will be playing its third game since Saturday. Since a 93-48 loss to Hutchinson on January 30 in Great Bend, the Cougars have won 6 of 7. The only blemish was an 81-80 loss to Seward County on Saturday. The Cougars saw a double-digit first-half lead disappear against the Saints.

The Cougars then had to travel to Colby on Monday for a weather-related make-up game. Barton defeated Colby 55-46.

Shooting almost 64 percent in the first half in their January 30 meeting at Great Bend, the then-No. 3-ranked Blue Dragons led Barton by as many as 37 points in the late in the second quarter and sprinted to a 93-48 victory.

The Blue Dragons scored the first six points of the game and immediately pulled away from there. Hutch's first 20-point lead came with 2:43 left in the opening quarter after an Abby Ogle three-point play gave the Blue Dragons a 23-3 lead. Hutch hit 12 of 17 shots in the opening quarter and held Barton to 2 of 16 shooting to lead 31-8 after the first period.

The Dragons scored the first nine points of the second quarter to boost the lead to 40-8 with 6:12 remaining in the half. Roebuck, who had 18 points in the first half, converted a three-point play to give the Blue Dragons their largest lead of the half of 37 with a 51-14 lead with 2:25 left and 53-23 at halftime.

The Blue Dragons look to break a five-way tie for eighth place on the Blue Dragon all-time wins chart. The 2018-19 Blue Dragons are tied with the 1989-90, 2001-02, 2015-16 and 2017-18 teams with 27 wins in a season.

Sophomore Dejanae Roebuck is currently No. 12 on the Blue Dragon career scoring chart with 879 points. She is 12 points away from entering the Blue Dragon Top 10. Roebuck is already No. 5 on the career rebounds list with 525 rebounds.