Sousa and Kail earn KJCCC soccer weekly awards

Two Barton Community College men's soccer players earned conference honors for their performances in week six of the season September 22-28.  Awarded weekly to outstanding performances, in a competitive battle for the honors Renan Sousa was voted the KJCCC Player of the Week while Austin Kail shared top goalkeeper honors with Neosho County Community College's Ryan Davis.

Sousa led Barton to two victories during week six as the freshman midfielder scored two goals and assist accounting for half of the Cougars goals.  Sousa scored the first of his two game winners just seven minutes into the Tuesday, September 23, contest at Hesston College then accounted for both Barton goals in the following Sunday's win against Cloud County Community College.  Setting up Jiro Barriga Toyama to give Barton a 1-0 early second half lead, Sousa answered Cloud County's tying goal less than four minutes later beating his defender through the box to perfectly finish off Matt Sherrod's cross.   The victory was a pivotal win for the Cougars moving Barton past the T-Birds into second place in the conference standings.

Sophomore goalkeeper Austin Kail added another solid weekly performance in goal improving to 4-2-3 on the season helping solidify the backline in the Cougars' two victories.  After orchestrating a sound defensive effort allowing no shots on goal in the win at Hesston, Kail was pivotal in Barton's one goal victory over Cloud County.  Turning away multiple shots in the contest, Kail's only goal allowed came after the Cougars failed to clear the 8' and Kail rejected two point-blank shots before a third rebound found the back of the net.

Barton, now 3-1-2 in conference play and 4-3-3 overall, have been away from competition since the September 28 meeting with Cloud County.  The Cougars' game Sunday in Salina versus the junior varsity squad of Kansas Wesleyan University was postponed due to illness of multiple Coyote team members.   Barton will get back to action on Tuesday as the both the men's and women's squads will host Cowley College at the Cougar Soccer/Track Complex.  Kick-off for the conference matchups is 2:00 p.m. for the women and 4:00 p.m. for the men's contest with free admission to fans, as well as, live web streaming will be available.