The Barton Community College men's basketball team bounced back from a disappointing loss to begin the conference season with a hard fought 96-86 victory over Dodge City Community College Wednesday night at the Barton Gym. The Cougars improve to 1-1 in Jayhawk West play and 13-5 overall while Dodge City drops to 1-1 and 12-6. Next for the Cougars will be a trip to Concordia to take on Cloud County Community College in a 7:30 p.m contest. Cloud, who has started the conference with losses on the road at Dodge and Pratt, will look for home cooking to improve on their current 8-10 record.
Both teams came out firing the first half as Barton shot at a 50% clip on 16-of-32 shooting while Dodge City connected on 15-of-32 for just shy of 47%. Barton had the first run of the half jumping out to a seven point lead just five minutes into the contest. Keyed by two of EJ Eaves' sixteen first half points, the Conqs put together a 12-3 run in the next two and a half minutes to take the lead.
Tied for the fifth time of the half, a Brett O'Neil three-pointer capped an 8-0 run to give Dodge City a 37-29 lead with five minutes to play. Back came the Cougars behind their own barrage of long range shots as Isaac Williams, Trey Unrau, and Darius Gibson drained one behind the arc as Barton tied the game at 44 with 1:46 left. One minute later freshman Rashawn Walker knocked down two free throws to give the Cougars a two-point halftime edge.
Barton held the lead through the first eight minutes of the second half until Ameer Jackson connected on the second of his two free throws to give Dodge City it's final lead. A pinpoint pass from Tyler Corley leading to a Raheem Johnson dunk spurred Barton to a five point advantage in the next two minutes.
Dodge City managed to tie the game for the eleventh and final time of the game with 6:18 to play but a trey from Williams and a pair of charity throws quickly pushed Barton's lead back out to five. Following a Larry Beckett three-point play, Barton took control for good on a 10-0 run capped by back-to-back dunks by Johnson.
Another Brock trey cut the deficit to nine but it was as close as the Conqs would come as Barton closed out the last 2:27 to earn their first conference win of the season.
Darius Gibson's twenty-seven points led Barton in scoring for the third straight game as all five Cougar starters reached double figures. Raheem Johnson recorded his sixth double-double of the season scoring sixteen points and grabbing ten rebounds. Tyler Corley and Isaac Williams both scored fourteen while Darryln Johnson added eleven. Corley and Deriece Parks led in assists with five each.
Dodge City had three players in double-digit scoring as all three scored twenty-plus points. EJ Eaves led the Conquistadors with twenty-four points after scoring sixteen in the first half of action. George Brock came off the bench to score seventeen of his twenty-three points in the second half while Larry Beckett added twenty to go along with his team high eight rebounds. Brett O'Neil led Dodge City in assists with four while Brock led in steals with three.