Barton comes up short in comeback effort at Cloud to start West play

Barton comes up short in comeback effort at Cloud to start West play

The Barton Community College men's basketball team spent most of the night playing catch-up basketball at Concordia Wednesday night coming up just short in its comeback bid. Barton lost the Jayhawk West opener at Arley Bryant Gym, falling to Cloud County 85-78. Barton is now 12-3 overall on the season and 0-1 in the West. Cloud improved to 11-4 and 1-0. Barton will now travel to Liberal to take on No 25 Seward County. Seward also lost its West opener at No 1 Hutchinson Wednesday by an 80-75 final.  

Highlights
Cloud used a 14-0 run midway through the opening half to grab a 29-14 lead on the Cougars. Cloud extended it to 18 on one occasion before the Cougars began to battle back getting it as low as 7 before Cloud closed out the half with a 41-31 lead.

That would be the theme to the 2nd half as Barton would trim the margin down only to see Cloud extend it back out. But each time Barton would draw a little bit closer. Barton trimmed it to 4 then 3 before Cloud pushed it back to double figures only to see Barton draw within 74-72 with 2 minutes to play and a chance to tie the game but for a missed dunk.

Cloud pushed it back to 7 points and looked to be in control leading 79-72 with 1:02 left following a pair of free throws. But a Colin Beatty 3-pointer with 57 seconds left was followed by a DeVonte Grant steal and Chris Cantino 3-pointer with 41 seconds to play and suddenly it was a 79-78 contest. The Cougars had a shot to tie the game but Grant's 3-pointer skid long with 23 seconds to play and Cloud hit 6-of-8 free throws in the final minute to secure the win.  

Dwayne Brunson scored 18 to lead the Cougars in scoring followed by Adam Young who ended with 13 points and 16 rebounds. Grant added 11. Carl Wallace had 5 assists to pace the Cougars. Cloud was led by point guard Richard Carter who tossed in 22 followed by Devon Branch with 19.

Barton will look to avoid a 0-2 start to the conference with the trip to Liberal to take on the No 25 ranked team in the country. The Saints had a 7-game winning streak snapped at Hutch Wednesday and are a perfect 8-0 at home this year. 

Stats
Stats can be found was www.bartonsports.com  

Next
Jan 8 – at Seward County 8 pm (Jayhawk West game at The Green House in Liberal)