Barton captures road in at Pratt, 87-69

Barton captures road in at Pratt, 87-69
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team earned a big road win Saturday night, rolling to an 87-69 win at the Beaver Dome in Pratt. The win at West's 2nd place team's home floor was the 1st time since the season-opening weekend the Cougars have put together back-to-back wins. Barton moved to within a game of 2nd place in the West with the win, now 5-4 in West play. Barton is 10-13 overall. Pratt fell to 6-3 and into a tie with Seward County in 2nd place in West play with the loss and 13-10 overall. Barton will host West leading Garden City (7-1, 15-7) Wednesday at the Barton County Gym.

Highlights
The Cougars got off to a slow in the contest, trailing by 8 points on a couple of occasions. Pratt jumped to a 12-4 lead and still held that 8-point advantage with at 17-9 with 11:27 to play in the contest. Barton slowly chipped away at the lead until the Cougars tied that game at 22-all with 4:39 left in the half.

During that final 4:30 of the 1st half, the Barton offense found high gear scoring 18 points in just more than four minutes of play. Barton took the lead for good when Antanas Kavaliauskas scored on a layup with 2:59 left in the half on an assist from Scott Elliott. A pair of Caleb Tegtmeier 3-pointers and one by Aubrey Bruner to end the half pushed Barton's lead to 40-31 by the intermission.

The Cougars didn't let off the gas in the 2nd half, leading by double digits nearly the entire 20 minutes of action. Pratt did cut the lead to 43-37 and 47-41 early the half, but that would be as close as the Beavers would get. Barton pushed the lead 17 when Dylan Channel joined in one of the Cougars better 3-point shooting night's of the season with his 2nd trey of the game at the 8:09 mark for a 66-49 lead. The Beavers got the lead to single digits once more at 68-59 with 5:52 to play but the Cougars answered with an 8-1 run to put the game away.

Several career efforts were put forth by the Cougars in the win. Bruner tossed in a career-high 25 points to lead the Cougars in scoring and also equaled his career-high with 7 rebounds. Kavaliauskas didn't put up career numbers but did turn in his 12th double-double of the season with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Tegtmeier turned in career double-double No. 1 with 16 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Both were career-high marks for the Cougar freshman. The rebound total of 14 doubled his previous high of 7. It was the 4th time during the West season that Tegtmeier has scored in double figures and he is now averaging 8 points a contest in West play. Channel found double figures for the first time since a 22-point output back in late November, scoring 12 points.

Pratt was led by Marcus Wimberly with 19 points and Jared Young with 16. Pratt hit just 4-of-20 3-pointers in the contest while Barton hit 10-of-25. The 10 treys for the Cougars was just the 3rd time they've hit double digits in that category. Barton made 11 treys in wins over Western Wyoming and Westchester. The 87 points was the 2nd highest of the season (88 v Westchester) and the first time this season Barton put together back-to-back 80-point performances. It was also the 6th time in 8 games Barton has shot higher than 50 percent (30-of-59) from the floor. The Cougars are 5-1 in those contests.

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

Next
Wed., Feb. 9 – v Garden City, 7:30 pm (Jayhawk West contest at the Barton County Gym)

-30-

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