Coming off a disappointing road loss on Saturday, the Barton Community College men's basketball team dominated the first half of play Wednesday night at the Barton Gym against Seward County Community College then held off a second half charge to win 72-66. The victory by the Cougars snapped a Seward County five game winning streak in the Barton Gym and earned Head Coach Craig Fletchall his 300th collegiate win. Barton improves to 2-2 in Jayhawk West play and 14-6 overall while handling Seward County its first conference loss of the season to drop to 3-1 and 13-7 overall. The Cougars will play a rare Sunday contest as Barton travels to Colby Community College for 4:00 p.m. tip-off at the Colby Community Building.
The Cougars built a twenty point first half lead behind Darius Gibson's thirteen points and seven other Cougars adding to the scoring as Barton knocked down 5-of-11 shots from behind the arc. Trey Unrau drained two and sparks-off- the-bench Deriece Parks, Travell Robinson, and Isaac Williams each drained a trey. The Cougars had trailed by seven with 13:38 to play before Unrau drained back-to-back treys to kick-start a Barton 14-2 run during the next four minutes. After a Seward bucket by Tyreke Sharp, the Cougars responded with a 19-4 run to finish the half with the 39-21 lead.
The Saints came out firing in the second half scoring the first six points before a Tyler Corley temporarily halted the charge. Seward continued to attack and reeled off a 12-4 run in the next four minutes to draw to within seven with 13:50 to play. Like Corley's trey earlier, Parks drained a three from the top of the key to keep the Saints at bay, but only for the next four minutes.
Trailing by seven with 8:39 to play, Malcolm Hill-Bey's three and seven points from Niem Stevenson tied the game at 60 with a little less than six minutes to play. Having lost both conference games after leading at halftime, Barton appeared to be headed for its third loss as Seward then took a brief one-point lead with only 3.33 to play.
Behind the guard play of Gibson and Corley and a twelve foot baseline jumper from Darryln Johnson, the Cougars scored the seven points to lead by six with just thirty-four seconds to play. A pair of Quentin Purtue free throws would close the deficit to four five second later but Corley answered with two of his own with twenty-four seconds left to seal the six-point Cougar victory.
Darius Gibson and Tyler Corley were the only Cougars to reach double figures as all twelve players saw action with ten getting into the scoring column. Gibson scored nineteen points and led the team with five assists while also accumulating four steals. Corley led the team with six steals and finished with eighteen points. Darrylyn Johnson's seven rebounds led the team as eight Cougars grabbed two or more rebounds.
Niem Stevenson, the reigning KJCCC Player of the Week, led the Saints in both scoring and rebounding getting twenty-five points and hauling down nine rebounds. Malcom Hill-Bey came off the bench to score fourteen while Secean Johnson added eleven.
Head Coach Craig Fletchall, Barton's all-time leader in wins, is one win away from reaching the 200 level of wins at Barton. Fletchall's mark at Barton improves to 199-78 while his career victory chart stands currently at 300-136.