No. 11 Cougars pounce early, roll on to 83-56 win at Colby #GoBarton

Last time the two teams faced earlier in Great Bend, it took an overtime period to decide the final outcome. Wednesday night in Colby, a 12-0 run within the first four minutes would set the tone as the No. 11 ranked Barton Community College men's basketball team rolled up an 83-56 unexpected dominating win at Colby Community College. The Cougars' sole possession of first place record improves to 12-2 and 16-2 on the season while Colby slips to 8-6 and 12-6 overall. Barton will put its five game win streak on the line this Saturday as the Cougars welcome fourth place Garden City Community College (9-5, 13-5) to the Barton Gym for a 7:30 p.m. tip-off.

Leading 15-4 after the twelve point spurt less than four minutes into the contest, the teams traded buckets before Noah Webster and Keshon Montague treys bookended an eight point stretch to widen the gap to sixteen halfway through the half. The Trojans managed four straight but did little to slow down the assault as Marvin Cannon's personal 7-0 run and buckets by Akeem White and Roy Broomfield helped Barton in a 15-2 demoralizing stretch going on to a 46-20 halftime lead.

Elijah Ford's first half nine point performance increased to twelve points early in second half play with Barton's first three points. Later in the final frame Ford's hoop-n-harm and Montague and Cannon jumpers increased the lead to thirty-four points before the Trojans outscored the Cougars by seven in the last twelve minutes for the final margin.

Coming off a career stat stuffing night last Saturday, Cannon again had a big night in pacing four Cougars in double digits with twenty seven points. Going 10-of-14 from the field, Cannon connected on two of those from beyond the arc while grabbing nine rebounds, two steals and assists, and three blocked shots. Ford finished with fifteen points, reigning conference player of the week Webster's 3-of-5 long distance shooting led to fourteen points, and Montague finished with thirteen as the conference leading assist man dished out six dimes.

Four Trojans reached double-figures being led off the bench by Gabriel Gyamfi's double-double performance of fourteen points and twelve rebounds. Christian Carmichael scored thireen with Craig Beaudion and James Dalton contributing eleven and ten points respectively.

Other Game Notes:

• Barton now leads the overall series 53-10 including a 21-8 advantage at Colby
• Barton committed twenty-two fouls resulting in 26 Colby free throws – both second most for the Cougars this season
• Defensively, Barton posted season best numbers by limiting Colby to just seven assists, two three-pointers and 10% shooting behind the arc (2-of-20), leading to Colby's lowest point total of the season (56)
• After being held scoreless in Barton's loss to Allen County, Noah Webster's fourteen points extends his double-figure streak to eight straight games. Going 9-of-19 last week to earn conference honors, Webster was again deadly behind the arc making three of this five shots
• Marvin Cannon's last two games have produced 57 points, 20 rebounds, five assists, five steals, and five blocked shots. Connecting on 4-of-6 from behind the arc, Cannon is 22-of-32 (68.8%) from the field.