CONCORDIA, Kansas — The Cloud County Community College women's basketball team rattled off its fifth straight victory Saturday evening, kicking off the Homecoming festivities with an impressive 67-55 victory over Barton Community College.

"This win felt really good. We had to do it against a good team and we had to battle for 40 minutes," said Cloud County head coach, Brett Erkenbrack. "We did a lot of good things under some tough circumstances. We battled foul trouble all night long and Barton is a good ball club. It is big and it presented us with a lot of problems, but it was a great win for us and I'm very proud of our young ladies."

With the win, and three regular season games remaining, Cloud County (18-8 overall, 15-8 KJCCC) clinched a first-round home playoff game in two weeks when the Region VI Tournament gets underway.

The T-Birds led wire-to-wire Saturday night, jumping all over the Lady Cougars (13-14 overall, 10-13 KJCCC) in the first quarter to take a 22-10 lead.

Sophomore guard Kelsi Mueller led the way with eight of her game-high 20 points in the quarter, while drawing the tough defensive matchup with Barton's star guard, Jaylin Stapleton, who was limited to 10 points on 2-of-10 shooting.

"She played with a lot of heart and a lot of competitive spirit," said Erkenbrack of Mueller. "Kelsi had to play well on both ends and I thought she did."

Freshmen Courtney Hammel and Camille Awa Baud played great minutes for the T-Birds on Saturday, as well, as the tandem each scored 15 points and grabbed six rebounds apiece.

"Both of those young ladies (were great). Camille was awesome in the first half, especially," Erkenbrack said. "Courtney Hammel was dynamite. She gives everything she's got every single night and she doesn't make many mistakes. I have to say Courtney Hammel is the player of the game in my mind because of what she did on both ends of the floor to settle us."

Cloud County led by as many as 20 points with 6:23 remaining in the second quarter before Barton was able to find its footing.

The Lady Cougars fought back to make it a nine-point game at the half at 37-28, but never inched closer than eight points in the second half.

Freshman guard Carrie Davis led all Cloud players with seven assists, and freshmen forwards Scout Frame and Mikaela Meyers each provided a rebounding lift off the bench with five boards apiece.

With a home playoff game now locked up, Cloud County will look to keep its winning streak alive and do some reshuffling atop the KJCCC standings over its final three regular season games, starting at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Cowley College.

"We have three tough games left and we want to finish as high as we can finish and continue to play well," Erkenbrack said. "We have a very difficult game next Wednesday at Cowley. Cowley is a really good ball club and we're playing at a tough place. They put it to us pretty good here (64-47 loss) and that was kind of one of our low points that night, so hopefully we can go down there, play well and give ourselves a chance to win."