The Barton Community College men's basketball team survived Wednesday night at the Barton Gym in holding off a second rally to knock off 24th ranked Coffeyville Community College 89-85.
Moving to 1-1 in conference play, Barton improves to 9-2 while sliding Coffeyville to 1-2 in league action and 9-4 overall. Barton's next contest comes Saturday as the Cougars test the conference road with a 6:00 p.m. tip at Independence Community College.
Trailing 6-5 in the first three minutes, it was all Barton throughout the first half shooting 55% from the field including draining 7-of-14 from beyond the arc to lead 41-29.
Coffeyville began to inch its way back into the contest by outscoring Barton by three in the second frame's opening ten minutes with the difference coming on the stat sheet from a Red Raven three-pointer.
Seeing its lead shrink to just a four point margin with 4:48 to play, Barton appeared to withhold the Red Ravens extending its lead back out to eight until the final minute. Coffeyville closed to within four with eighteen seconds left, before slicing the deficit to within two with six ticks left. The Cougars shot just 67.9% from the charity stripe on the night but was nails down the stretch getting a pair of perfect trips to the line from Martin Vogts and Jaheim Holden in the final eight seconds to seal the early season big victory.
Sinking 6-of-6 from the charity stripe, Vogts was also dialed in beyond the arc on 4-of-6 shooting in posting a career high twenty-four points to lead four Cougars in double-digit scoring. Mavrick Gildyard, who knocked down a pair of big long distance shots to finish 3-of-4 beyond the arc, added a career high eighteen points with Diovonte Caldwell also coming off the bench to pour in eleven. Desean Munson led the squad with seven rebounds while adding thirteen points with Holden contributing nine including the clutch free throws and Anthony Atkinson-Enneking leading the distribution with a team high four assists.
Coffeyville's Kymani Dunham led five Red Ravens in double-digit scoring tallying eighteen points to go along with team high seven boards. Meikkel Murray and Tylor Perry each dialed in sixteen while Bostyn Holt and Tony Hutson added fourteen a piece with Hutson dishing out a game high five assists.