The hopes of an undefeated season for the Barton Community College men's soccer team were crushed Wednesday afternoon at Dodge City's Memorial Stadium as Dodge City Community College rattled the nets three times in second half action to upend the fifth ranked Cougars 3-2.
Despite the loss Barton remains atop the Jayhawk West standings at 7-1-0 and 10-1-1 on the year while Dodge City improves their third place standing to 3-2-2 in league play and 6-2-2 overall.
Barton has two games left on the schedule, the first coming in the regular season home finale on Saturday as the Cougars chase their tenth Jayhawk West crown in a 4:30 p.m. kick against Pratt Community College (1-5-1, 3-9-1).
Things started off great for Barton as the Cougars jumped out early forty-three seconds into the contest as leading goal scorer Gabrielle Privitera rocketed a missile far post from 21-yards out.
The play settled down for the rest of the half with Barton clinging to the one goal lead until 3:28 into the second frame as Dodge City did what no other team has done since August 28, score against the Cougar defense. The Conquistadors did so from eight yards out, capitalizing on a defensive miscue on an uncleared loose ball to blast a shot by keeper Marco Seyfert in the 1v1 situation.
The goal snapped Barton's longest shutout streak in the program's history, coming to a halt at an unofficial 929:01 minutes of action.
Just three minutes later, the shell-shocked Cougars found themselves in additional unchartered territory, trailing for the first time all season as Dodge City went ahead 2-1 as the Conquistadors redirected a 40-yard free kick on a header to the upper-90.
The deficit grew to a pair of net shakers with 4:23 to play as Seyfert made a tremendous save but the rebound found an unmarked Conquistador sliding to beat the head first diving attempt from Seyfert to boot what would be a much needed insurance goal.
To the Cougars credit, Barton would not wave the white flag, launching waves of attacks until Valdyslav Peretyatko helped make things interesting cutting the deficit in half just thirty seconds later in heading home his 8th goal of the season neeting home a great cross from Pedro Maximiano's fourth assist of the season.
Barton had two more attack attempts in the final three plus minutes, a cross within a minute later sailing a little too far to secure a good attempt on frame and a final launched shot with fifteen seconds missing well wide of frame.
For the game Barton was outshot on frame for the first time on the season as the Conquistadors launched ten times at Seyfert in comparison to just four for the Cougars.