Cougars cruise to season opening victory #GoBarton

Scoring Tuesday night's first twenty-two points, the Barton Community College men's basketball team never looked back in a 110-46 season opening victory over Sterling College junior varsity.

The Cougars join the women's team in making the short trip to Hutchinson for their next pair of games coming on Friday and Saturday participating in the BSN Sports Tipoff Classic. Barton will first meet Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in Friday's match-up before Saturday's contest against Triton College. A 3:00 p.m. slated tip-off time for each contest with live stream coverage available on the Barton Sports Network found at www.BartonSports.com.

Thirteen Cougars contributed to the output and 50.6% shooting while defensively coming up 19 steals forcing 28 Warrior turnovers and adding a plus-24 margin on the glass. Dishing out 29 assists on their 45 made buckets, the Cougars struggled behind the arc in sinking just 8-of-36 (22.2%). Sterling shot just 22.6% on the night, scoring five of their twelve made buckets from three-point land and added seventeen points from the free throw stripe shooting nearly 74% while the Cougars connected on 63%.

Joseph Locandro posted a double-double 18 points and 10 rebounds to lead four in double-figures. Christian Bowen-Webb drained 3-of-6 behind the arc for a collegiate debut 17 points as Cougar Downing and Ring Malith contributed 11 points and 10 points respectively.

Stefan Spray grabbed five of his team leading 11 rebounds from the offensive glass while Mozae Downing-Rivers produced a solid all-around game of 9 points, 7 assists, and 6 steals.

Gavin Dobbins came off the bench to lead Sterling with 14 points on 3-of-6 long distance shooting with Tanez Brown pulling down a team high seven rebounds.

RECAP
Eight different Cougars contributed to Barton's opening 22 points as the Warriors' Darius Mall broke the streak on a 1-of-2 trip to the free throw line with 9:48 remaining in the half. The margin grew to thirty-three before Sterling knocked down their first field goal on Harrison Hughes' jumper with 5:55 left as Barton would enjoy a 48-14 score at halftime.

Scoring 62 points in second half play, Barton added thirty more points to its advantage in stretching the gap to as many as 67 points with two minutes remaining. Redshirt freshman Andri Basovets connected on the Cougars' final three-pointer of the night by scoring his first collegiate points on a top-of-the key triple with 1:02 remaining.