Cougars earn 71-56 win over Dodge City

The Barton County Community College men's basketball team bounced right back from a tough loss Saturday night to win its 3rd game in the last four Jayhawk West outings. The Cougars knocked off Dodge City 71-56 at the Barton County Gym Wednesday night to even its West mark at 3-3 this season. The Cougars improved to 8-12 overall. Dodge City fell to 2-4 in the West and 10-9 overall with the loss. Barton will look to make it 4 of 5 West games Saturday with a trip to Concordia to take on Cloud County.

Highlights
Barton once again shot the ball well from the field and this time played some of its best defense of the season – especially in the 1st half. It was in that opening half of action that Barton built a 39-23 lead on the strength of its defense. Barton allowed Dodge just 6 made field goals in only 17 attempts the opening 20 minutes of action. The Cougars, meanwhile, got off twice as many shots in the half, hitting 16-of-34 field goals in the half.

The Cougars kept that double digit the entire 2nd half, pushing the margin to as high as 24 points (51-27) before a quick Dodge City spurt cut the Cougar lead to 53-40 with 11:36 to play. But Barton responded and put the lead back to 22 just prior to the 6-minute mark. Barton didn't allow Dodge closer than the final of 15 points.

The Cougars were paced by Antanas Kavaliauskas with 20 points to go along with 7 rebounds. Scott Elliott added 16 points – the 2nd highest in his Barton career – and Caleb Tetgmeier scored 10 – also his 2nd highest total as a Cougar. Aubrey Bruner dished out 8 assists for the Cougars. Dodge City was led by Anthony Teague who tossed in 18 off the bench and Jake Sims with 16.

The Cougars improved to 4-1 on the season when shooting 50 percent or better from the floor, hitting 28-of-56 for exactly 50 percent. The Cougars held Dodge to just 16-of-41 from the floor.

Stats
Full box scores and stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Sat., Jan 29 – at Cloud County, 8 pm (Jayhawk West contest at Concordia)

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