A big first half spurt left the 21st ranked Barton Community College men's basketball team fighting from behind all night in an eventual 101-75 pull away victory by 5th ranked Hutchinson Community College Saturday evening at the Barton Gym.
Tied at 28, Hutchinson quickly took the next twelve points for an eventual ten point lead at halftime before pulling away in in the final eleven minutes.
The Cougars drop their third straight to open conference play 0-3 and sliding to 6-3 overall while Hutchinson is off to a 4-0 league start improving to 10-0 on the season.
Barton next travels to Independence Community College on Wednesday for a 7:00 p.m. tip before returning home for its next two contests beginning Saturday hosting nationally receiving votes Coffeyville Community College.
RECAP
The duo of Cougar Downing and Evans Kipruto scored eight points each for an early 16-11 lead. Barton handled the Blue Dragons press early, providing six plus minutes of entertainment featuring three Kipruto dunks and a Downing splash from behind the arc. The Cougars led by five again following Trey Bates III layup at 18-13 with 11:56 left but a 6-1 Hutchinson stretch tied it up at 19.
Keith Robinson's triple and Hannes Saar's perfect two charity tosses pushed it back to five only to have Hutchinson rattle off the next nine in taking a four point lead. Saar's floater in the lane followed by feeding Downing on an alley-oop layup tied it up for the final time with 5:31 left but the Hutchinson defensive pressure began creating havoc.
The Cougars turned the ball over four times in the next ninety seconds resulting in Hutchinson 12-0 run breaking it open. Barton cut the deficit back to ten on five occasions with the final time on Josh Jordan acrobatic lay-in on a perfectly place Downing pass to beat the halftime buzzer.
Following a Hutchinson bucket to open second half play, a Saar triple and Kipruto converting an And-1 brought the Cougars to within six. The margin would be as close as Barton could come as Hutchinson provided the answer with six straight pushing the lead back to 12 with 16:25 remaining.
Barton made another run at it on six straight to slice the margin to 64-57 with 12:26 left but a 15-2 stretch over the next three minutes all but sealed the Cougars' fate.
The lead swelled briefly to thirty with under four to play following the Blue Dragons' 10th three-pointer of the game. Joseph Locandro scored consecutive inside buckets on Barton's next two trips with Trey Rolfs' three pointer closing out the night's scoring with twelve seconds remaining.
STATS
The Cougars won the battle to the free throw line, stepping for 33 attempts but missing out on the free opportunities in sinking just 18 for a 54.5%. Hutchinson meanwhile wasn't much better at 9-of-15 (60.0%) but had nineteen more field goal opportunities thanks to 25 Barton turnovers in shooting 49.4% (41-83) and knocking down 10-of-28 from behind the arc outscoring the Cougars by fifteen from long distance.
Kipruto led the Cougars for the second straight game, scoring 16 points and grabbing 7 rebounds. Downing was held to just three second half points in finishing with 15 points and a team high four assists while Saar rounded out the double figure scorers with 10 points. De'Antray Hughes' nine boards and Thompson's seven helped the Cougars outrebound the Blue Dragons by five.
Five Blue Dragons struck for double figures led but Kaimen Lennox' 24 points and Angelo Stuart's 22 points as the duo knocked down 5-of-14 from behind the arc. Kobe Campbell added 17 points with Jayden Hall and Jacquez Yow each contributing 10 points. Yow led the rebounding in just missing out of a double-double with 9 rebounds while Nate Goodlow led the distribution with 7 of Hutchinson's 27 assists.