Cougars' season comes to end in Region VI Championship game

Cougars' season comes to end in Region VI Championship game 
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team saw its season come to a heart-stopping conclusion with a 65-62 loss to Coffeyville in the finals of the Region VI Championship contest at the Bicentennial Center in Salina Tuesday night. The loss kept the Cougars from their 4th-ever appearance in the NJCAA National Basketball Tournament. Barton County ended its season with a 25-9 record while Coffeyville (28-6) moves on the NJCAA Tournament for the 3rd consecutive year.

Highlights
The contest featured just about everything including the ejection of Hall of Fame Coach Soupy Campbell for Barton County and an improbable conclusion that ended with a missed 3-pointer by the Cougars that would have sent the contest to overtime.

The Cougars jumped out to a 9-point lead early in the contest and held that for most of the first 10 minutes of the game but a 14-2 Coffeyville run gave the Red Ravens a 22-19 lead with 4 minutes to play in the opening half. That run was capped when Coach Campbell was whistled for a technical foul by referee Gordon Kratz. Coffeyville took a 29-25 lead into half thanks in part to 10 Barton turnovers.

In the second half the Cougars got out of the gates quickly once again, grabbing a 40-33 lead with 13 minutes to play in the game. But the 2-time defending Region VI Champions would not let their title go. The Red Ravens rallied to even the score with a 7-0 run in just more than 1 minute of play to even the game at 40-all and slugfest was on.

The Cougars were clinging to a 42-41 when Aubrey Bruner was whistled for a hand check foul near midcourt with 9:34 to play in the game. At that point Kratz hit Coach Campbell with his 2nd technical foul from across the court, sending the 26-year veteran to the locker room and leaving the team in the hands of assistant coach Brian Hancock.

Over the next 4 minutes the two clubs traded blows with neither getting more than a 2-point lead on the other. The Cougars finally were able to grab a 3-point cushion when Rone Smith hit 1-of-2 free throws for a 51-48 Barton lead with 5:37 to play. But over the next 2 minutes, the Red Ravens went on a 9-2 run to take a 57-53 lead with 3:46 to play. Barton would spend the rest of the game playing catch-up, coming up just short every time.

Joel Hannagan, who came off the bench to hit 3 treys and finish with 11 points, knocked down that 3rd trey to make it 57-56 but the Red Ravens again answered with a 3-point play to make it 60-56. Barton again clawed back to within a digit at 60-59 on a pair of Justin Rose free throws with 1:00 to play but 2 more Coffeyville free throws, a missed Barton 3-pointer and 2 more Red Raven charity tosses made it look like the contest was over at 64-59 with just 20 seconds left.

The Cougars, however, had more punch to counter with. Bruner knocked down a long 2-pointer to make it 64-61 with 13 seconds to play then the Cougars quickly fouled, sending Coffeyville to line once again. This time the Red Ravens Jomo Belfor hit just 1-of-2 free throws and when the Red Ravens committed a foul with 4 seconds left it gave the Cougars one final glimpse of hope. Bruner hit the 1st free throw to make it 65-62 then intentionally missed the 2nd free throw. The bounced around and was eventually knocked into the left corner by a Barton player where Hannagan grabbed it, set his feet and let fly the game-tying effort that just skid long.

The Cougars were paced on the night JP Batista with 15 points, but only 4 of those came in the 2nd half. Rose added 13 and Hannagan 11. Belfor led the Red Ravens with 23 points and Robert Green added 10. Coffeyville becomes the 1st team since Hutchinson in 1986-88 to win 3 straight Region VI titles. It matches the longest such streak ever in Region VI basketball. Cowley also did it once in the '50's while Hutch has done it twice.

Stats
Stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

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Season Complete with 25-9 record.