Cougars shut down Thunderbirds; keep pace with West front runners

Cougars shut down Thunderbirds; keep pace with West front runners
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team kept pace in a tightly bunched pack on top of the Jayhawk West with an 81-69 overtime win over the Cloud County Thunderbirds Wednesday night at the Barton County Gym. The Cougars protected their home floor in a West race that saw 5 teams enter Wednesday night tied at the top of the conference and 3 leave the night still tied. Barton improved to 6-2 and will remain in a tie for the top spot with Hutchinson and Garden City. The Cougars are 18-4 overall. Cloud County fell to 2-6 in the conference and 13-9 overall.

Highlights
It didn't appear as though the Cougars were going to be tied for the top spot in the conference following the 1st half Wednesday night. Barton went 7 1/2 minutes without a point, watching a 15-14 lead turn into a 30-15 deficit. It got worse before it got better for Barton. The Thunderbirds lead grew to 40-22 in the final minute of the opening half before a late Cougar hoop made it 40-24 at the half.

It was a 1st half to forget for Barton as the Cougars hit just 9-of-23 shots from the floor – 11 of those 23 shots were 3-pointers. Cloud dominated the 1st half boards, out-rebounding the Cougars 21-11. In fact the Thunderbirds had nearly as many offensive rebounds (10) as Barton had total rebounds. Those 10 offensive rebounds resulted in 10 2nd chance points for the T-Birds.

It didn't take the Cougars long to establish that the 2nd 20 minutes of play would be a much different half. A quick 8-0 run just 3 1/2 minutes into the 2nd half cut the Cloud lead to 40-32 on a 3-pointer from Aubrey Bruner and the game was on. The Cougar defense continued to play in lockdown mode, holding the T-Birds to just 2 points the first 12 minutes of the 2nd half. During that span, Barton outscored Cloud 20-2 to take a 44-42 lead on the Thunderbirds. Barton took the lead on a pair of free throws by Rone Smith.

The Cougars, who continued to pound the ball inside to JP Batista, eventually pushed the lead to 59-54 with less than two minutes to play in the game but turnovers in the final minute allowed Cloud to tie the game at 59-all and eventually have a shot to win the game at the buzzer before the two teams went into overtime.

Barton bolted out of the gates in OT, putting together a 9-1 run to grab a 68-60 lead with 3 minutes to play on a Joel Hannagan 3-pointer. The closest Cloud would get the remainder of the game was 5 points.

Batista poured in 28 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the floor and 12-of-15 at the free throw line. The 6-9 sophomore played all but 4 minutes in the game. Bruner logged even more minutes in the contest, playing 42 of the 45 minutes, and ending with a career-high 17 points. Bruner also had a career-high 7 rebounds to go with 5 assists and 5 turnovers. Hannagan and Smith played big off the bench, combining for 25 points. Hannagan ended with 13 points on 3-of-5 shooting from 3-point land and Smith added 12 points and 8 rebounds. After being out-rebounded 21-11 in the opening half, Barton dominated the boards in the 2nd half and OT, winning the board battle 28-13 in the final 25 minutes and claiming a 37-34 rebound advantage for the game.

Cloud was led by freshman Adam Vogelsberg with 24 points, knocking down 4 treys and 10-of-11 free throws. He was the only Thunderbird to reach double digits.

Stats
Stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Jan. 31 – at Seward County, 8 pm (Jayhawk West contest at the Seward County Gym)

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Check out Barton County Men's Basketball Online at www.bartonccc.edu/sports