Tough season comes to an and for Barton men’s basketball

Tough season comes to an and for Barton men's basketball
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team completed a tough journey Saturday night, ending what has been a very trying basketball campaign. The Cougars finished the season with a 69-63 loss to Seward County at the Greenhouse in Liberal. Barton, which finished with a 13-17 mark, will not participate in the post season due to self-imposed sanctions by the college. The Cougars did, however, finish in a tie for 3rd place in the Jayhawk West with an 8-8 conference mark. Seward County finished 2nd in the West with an 11-5 record and will take a 22-8 record into Region VI playoff action.

Highlights
Both teams shot the ball extremely well to start the contest for much of the 1st half both squads were near 60 percent from the floor. The teams traded leads during the 1st half with Barton taking an early lead and leading as much as 22-15 halfway through the opening 20 minutes. Seward rallied to take a 27-26 lead then the two team traded the lead with Seward eventually taking a 38-33 lead to intermission as both teams hit better than 50 percent from the floor in the opening half.

Seward extended that lead to 9 on a couple of occasions in the 2nd half, the latest coming at 46-37 with 15 minutes to play in the game. But the Cougars came storming back with an 8-0 started with an Antanas Kavaliauskas dunk on a fast break pass from Aubrey Bruner then capped by back-to-back 3-pointers from Caleb Tegtmeier. Seward pushed the lead back to 7 but Barton worked it all the way and eventually took a 59-58 lead on Tegtmeier's 4th 3-pointer of the game with 4:07 to play. Barton was unable to score on its next 4 possessions however as Seward recaptured the lead and built it to 65-59 in the final minute.

Kavaliauskas, playing in his final game as a Cougar, led Barton. The sophomore finished the game with 22 points and 11 rebound and became the 1st Barton player since Mark Hutton in 1992 to average double figures in both scoring and rebounding. Kavaliauskas ended with a 17.4 scoring average and a 10.0 rebound average.

Bruner, also playing his final game for Barton, ended with 10 points and 7 assists. Bruner finished his sophomore campaign with an 11.2 point average and 4.9 assists. In the final 5 games of the year, Bruner averaged just less than 7 assists per contest. Tegtmeier ended his freshman campaign with 12 points and finished the season hitting 40 percent of his 3-point attempts. Tegtmeier shot higher than 45 percent on 3's during Jayhawk West action.

Adam Turner led Seward with 22 points – 9-of-9 from the free throw line. Keoni Watson added 17 and Kyle Smith 11 for the Saints. Both defenses made things tougher in the 2nd half as both shot in the 30 percent in the 2nd half and ended at 48 percent for the game.

Stats
Full box scores and stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Season complete

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