Barton survives overtime scare; heads to Region VI quarterfinals

Barton survives overtime scare; heads to Region VI quarterfinals
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team displayed the dictionary definition of the tournament cliché 'survive and advance' Wednesday night at the Barton Gym. The Cougars rallied from a late deficit to sent the game to overtime then held off Allen County in that overtime for an 89-84 win to start the Region VI Tournament. The win moved the Cougars (23-7) into the quarterfinals where they will play the top seed from the Jayhawk East Cowley. Cowley enters the game ranked No. 8 and has a 29-2 record this season. Barton has now won 7 straight games. The two teams will play Sunday at 1 pm at Koch Arena in Wichita as the 1st of 4 quarterfinal games.

Highlights
Qa'rraan Calhoun put forth one of his best efforts of the season for Barton as the sophomore scored a career-high 33 points in the win to help offset a tremendous effort from Allen's Perry Petty, who recorded a triple double in the loss. Petty finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists for the Red Devils.

Barton led the entire opening half – by double digits much of the way. The Cougars held that comfortable lead the opening stages of the 2nd half as well, leading 53-41 with 16:30 to play. That is when the Red Devils began to make things interesting. Allen went on a 13-0 run capped by a Tyray Petty 3-pointer to give the visitors their 1st lead of the night at 57-55 with 12 minutes to play. Calhoun immediately gave the Cougars the lead back with a 3-pointer but the two clubs would trade the lead 6 times over those final 12 minutes.

The Red Devils led by as many as 5 at 75-70 with just 3:32 to play. But back-to-back 3-pointers by Chip Steven and Calhoun gave the Cougars the lead back at 76-75 with 2:22 to play. Allen responded yet again as the two teams continued to rain down 3's. The Red Devils hit their 12th trey of the contest with 1:44 to play and Allen had the lead back 78-76. Calhoun again bailed out Barton with jumper at 1:29 to play to even the score at 78-all. Barton had a final chance to win the game but a Steven 3 bounced off.

Barton came out and scored the opening 4 points of overtime and never trailed. Allen could only get as close a 2 in the overtime and Steven hit 3-of-4 free throws in the final minute to secure the win for Barton and move them into the quarterfinals.

In addition to the career high from Calhoun, Chris Jackson added 16 points, Javon Parris 12 and Steven 11. Both Parris and Steven handed out 5 assists while Parris led Barton with 4 steals. Matt Simmons had a big night off the bench for Barton, collecting 14 rebounds – just 1 shy of his career high. It was the most rebounds since November for the Great Bend freshman. The Cougars shot just less then 50 percent from the floor, hitting 33-of-67 shots including another good night behind the 3-point arc, hitting 10-of-22.

Tyray Petty joined his brother Perry in double figures, leading the Red Devils along with William Sloanes with 17 points. The Red Devils hit 13-of-29 3-pointers in the contest.

The Cougars and Tigers will kick off the day Sunday and will be followed by Hutchinson and Coffeyville. The winners will play each other Monday at 5 pm. The bottom half of the bracket will see Independence take on Cloud County with the day's final game pitting Seward County and Garden City.

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

Next 
Sun March 9 – v Cowley, 1 pm (Region VI quarterfinals at Koch Arena in Wichita)

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