Offense was on display Saturday night at the Barton Gym as the Barton Community College men's basketball team was outgunned in its conference opener 122-112 to Cowley College.
The loss halts Barton's modest four-game win streak as the Cougars slip to 8-2 on the season while Cowley's second victory of the early conference season improves the Tigers to 10-2. Barton will look to rebound on Wednesday in hosting perennial East power Coffeyville Community College in a 7:30 p.m. tip-off.
A 58-56 Cowley lead at the intermission set the stage for a wild second half of action as the teams would go on to combine for the third most combined points in Barton program history.
Martin Vogts' touchdown pass from the end line to a streaking Jaheim Holden fully erased the Tiger lead giving Barton its largest of the game at five at 75-70 with 15:20 to play. Cowley countered with an 8-0 run to flip the script with Barton eventually gaining their final lead 81-80 on a pair of Holden free throws at the 12:01 mark.
The Tigers rattled off eleven straight in the next two minutes with Barton firing back with the next nine points in closing the gap with 7:28 remaining to 91-90.
Still leading by one at 95-94, Cowley all but put the game away with another big point stretch, claiming the next nine until Vogts' 1-of-2 trip halted the streak at 104-95 with 3:56 left.
Anthony Atkinson-Enneking's offensive rebound put back and Desean Munson's inside bucket cut the gap to five in the next minute but it would be as close as Barton would get the rest of the way until 1:40 remaining on Justin Harmon's layup from Diovonte Caldwell's dish cut it to 109-104.
Cowley would go on to score the second most points against the Cougars in program history, seven points shy of the leading 129 total set in 1992.
Harmon's career high twenty six points led four Cougars in double-digits as Barton only received twenty points in bench production while Cowley scored forty-six. Holden also recorded a career high with twenty-five points while Munson posted a second straight double-double and third of the season in a twenty point and sixteen rebound production, combining for forty-three points and thirty-three rebounds in the last pair of games. Vogts rounded out the double-figure scoring with fourteen.
The Tigers drained ten treys on the night compared to Barton's four in shooting 51.7% from the field to the Cougars' 48.6%.
Six Tigers struck for double-digits being led by Mike'l Henderson's twenty-three points and seven assists with Deng Bolt scoring their first ten points of the night in finishing with twenty. Nineteen points came from Julius Nwosu with twelve coming from Cevin Clark. Leading the bench advantage was Martaveon Jones' fifteen with Shemarri Allen adding eleven.