Barton rolls into quarterfinals with impressive opening round win

Barton rolls into quarterfinals with impressive opening round win
The Barton Community College men's basketball team rolled into quarterfinal play of the Region VI tournament with an easy 96-65 win over Labette in 1st round action Tuesday night at the Barton Gym. The Cougars bolted out of the gates to a 21-2 lead and were never challenged as the top seed from the Jayhawk West rolled by the 8th seed from the Jayhawk East. The Cougars, ranked No. 12 in the NJCAA, will await the winner of the Hutchison at Neosho County game tonight to see who their opponent will be in the quarterfinals Saturday night at 7 pm at Wichita's Koch Arena. The Cougars improve to 27-4 with the win while Labette ends its season at 7-24.

Highlights
The Contest was not in doubt very long as Barton exploded out of the gates with a 17-0 run early in the contest. The Cougars led 4-2 when a pair of Marcus Butler free throws started the big run. Taaj Ridley scored the next 9 points for Barton before Matt Simmons and Scrap Martin finished the run and gave Barton a 21-2 lead with 12:28 left in the half. The lead grew to 30 points on a Dennan Morrow 3-pointer for a 38-8 lead with 7 minutes still to play in the half. Barton coasted to half with a 57-26 lead thanks to a 20-0 margin in points off turnovers.

The lead stayed in the 30's for most of the 2nd half with the biggest lead coming at 36 points with 11 minutes to play. After the blistering 57-point 1st half which saw Barton connect on 21-of-38 shots both teams scored 39 in the 2nd half. Barton ended the game just less than 50 percent, hitting 35-of-71 shots from the floor. Barton out-rebounded Labette by a 54-34 advantage.

Ridley led Barton as the freshman came off the bench for a career-high 23 points. That eclipsed his previous high of 18 at Dodge City. Martin and Butler each added 14 points while Chip Steven scored 13. Martin also had 6 assists while Nyika Williams, named the Player of the Year in the West earlier in the day, grabbed 15 rebounds in the win. Larry Barber paced Labette with 24. Terry Dawson added 16 points and 12 rebounds.

The Cougars will now wait and see who its next foe will be in the quartfinals. Either match-up would bring intrigue the floor in Wichita Saturday night. Barton and Hutch have long been fierce rivals in the West with the two teams splitting games this year as each won on its home floor. Meanwhile a Barton-Neosho match-up would pit Cougar Coach Craig Fletchall against his former team. Fletchall coached at Neosho for 5 seasons before moving to Barton, where he is in his 4th year at the helm of the Cougars.

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

Next
March 7 – v Neosho/Hutch winner 7 pm (Region VI quarterfinals at Koch Arena in Wichita)

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