Cougars win home openers; improve to 4-2

Cougars win home openers; improve to 4-2
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team finally played a game in the familiar surroundings of the Barton County Gym. After four road games to open the season, the Cougars took to their own court for the Pizza Hut Classic, rolling to a pair of wins. Barton knocked off the Hastings College JV Friday night, 83-53. Saturday the Cougars concluded the event with an 89-73 win over Labette Community College of the Jayhawk East. The Cougars are now 4-2 on the season.

Highlights
Barton jumped out to a big halftime lead on the Broncos Friday night thanks to a 21-1 run late in the opening half. The run was started by a highlight dunk from sophomore Josh Rose and propelled the Cougars to a 52-26 halftime lead. Barton hit a terrific 22-of-34 shots from the floor in the opening half for 65 percent. From there Barton cruised in the 2nd half as only one player saw more than 20 minutes of action and all but one player scored in the contest. Sophomore J.P. Batista led the scoring for Barton with 16 points followed by fellow-starter Justin Rose with 13. Joe Dickens and Antanas Kavaliauskas, who played the most minutes as 22, both added 10 points off the bench.

The Cougars worked harder Saturday for their win over Labette but led by double digits most of the 2nd half. Barton and Labette battled early but the Cougars pushed ahead to a 42-34 halftime lead. In the 2nd half Barton shot a sizzling 21-of-31 from the floor as the Cougars put up 47 2nd half points to pull away to the 16-point win.

The contest was again highlighted by a Josh Rose dunk, but this time with a lot of help from brother Justin. In what was the most crowd-electrifying play of the Pizza Hut Classic, Justin Rose knocked the ball loose from Labette near the top of the key at the Labette end of the floor. As Rose and the Labette player both gave chase for the ball as it neared midcourt, Josh Rose broke toward center court as well. Justin ran down the ball, grabbed it and fed Josh in stride with a behind the back pass all in one motion. Josh grabbed it just on the Barton side of halfcourt and went in for an uncontested, high-flying jam that brought the crowd to their feet in unison.

Four starters found double digits for the Cougars, paced by Batista and Tyler Luke with 16. Justin Rose scored 15 points and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds to go along with his spectacular play. Freshman point guard Aubrey Bruner added 10 points and 6 assists but committed 5 turnovers.

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

Next
Nov. 17 – at Northeastern Junior College, 8 pm (at Sterling, Colo.)
Nov. 19 – at Labette, 7 pm (at Parsons, Kan.)

-30-

Check out Barton County Men's Basketball Online at www.bartonccc.edu/sports