Cougars start West play with road win

Cougars start West play with road win
The 3-game losing streak is over. The Barton County Community College men's basketball team started the Jayhawk West season off on the right foot Wednesday night in Concordia, knocking off Cloud County by a 78-66 score.

The win ended a 3-game losing skid for the Cougars, dropping all three games in the Dixie State College New Year's Tournament in St. George, Utah.

Barton County is now 12-3 for the year and 1-0 in West play. Cloud County falls to 8-7 overall and 0-1.

Highlights
The Cougars bolted to a 17-3 lead in the opening minutes of the game and built that lead to 46-29 by halftime. That lead grew to 50-31 in the early stages of the second half before the Thunderbirds began to rally. A 10-0 Cloud run but the lead to single digits with 15 minutes to play.

The Barton lead stayed between five and nine points. Cloud cut the lead to 60-55 with eight minutes to play before an Elisha Fields basket on a feed from Jason Carter with 7:40 to play started the Cougars on a 9-0 run that cumulated with a basket by Carter with 4:52 left, giving Barton County a 69-55 lead.

Carter led the way for Barton, tossing in 27 points and grabbing a game-high eight rebounds as well. Carter also had six steals and three assists. Omari Westley added 14 points and six boards. Also in double figures was Rapheal Posey, who tossed in 11 points off the bench.

Cloud County was led by D'Andre McGrew with 22 points.

Next Up
The Cougars will continue a tough road stretch as they head to Liberal Saturday for the team's seventh straight game away from home. Barton County hasn't played a home game since Nov. 24. The Saints, who are ranked No. 16 this week, dropped their conference opener Wednesday in Hutchinson. Hutchinson knocked off Seward County by a 74-55 count, dropping the Seward County to 12-3 overall and 0-1 in the West.

Stats
Game boxes and cumulative stats can be found at the following website.

Barton County Men's Basketball Online at http://www.barton.cc.ks.us/sports/MB_01-02/mbasketball_01-02.htm

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