Knocking down a pair of late shots helped power the Barton Community College men's basketball team to a much needed 75-70 victory over Cowley College Saturday afternoon at the Barton Gym.
The Cougars trailed by thirteen points midway through first half action, grabbed a nine point lead with six minutes remaining, but needed a pair of timely Cougar Downing and Hannes Saar three-pointers in holding on to break a three game Tigers win streak on Barton's home floor.
Barton improves to 5-8 in conference play and 11-8 overall while Cowley drops to 6-7 in league and 10-9 on the year.
Next up is a Wednesday trip to No. 8 Hutchinson Community College for a 7:30 p.m. tip-off at the Sports Arena.
Downing's shot clock beating three-pointer with 1:03 remaining gave the Cougars the lead for good, leading Barton with 23 points. Making the most of his first collegiate start, Joseph Locandro matched his career high 14 points while hauling down a game high 10 rebounds to post his second straight and third in last four games double-double performance. Keith Robinson drilled a pair of three-pointers on the way to an 11 point afternoon off the bench, grabbing 9 rebounds in just missing his second double-double of the year. Trey Bates III led with four assists while adding nine points and Myles Thompson finishing with eight points.
Mekhi Cameron's 15 points and Xavier Valley's 13 points led the Tigers behind a combined 6-of-12 from beyond the arc while Claren King finished with 10 points.
The Cougars were consistent shooting in 42% but the defense helped turn a tale of two halves for the Tigers in shooting nearly 52% in the first half to just 33% in the second half. Cowley canned 7-of-17 from deep in the first 20-minutes but missed their first 11 beyond the arc in the second half in making just 2-of-14 as the Cougars controlled the rebounds 49-26 in keeping the Tigers scoreless in second chance opportunities.
RECAP
Cowley came out on fire, canning six three pointers in the opening 10 minutes to grab their largest lead with 9:52 left at 26-23.
The Cougars settled in to chip away at the lead, drawing to within five a pair of times but 13 first half turnovers reared its head with Cowley going to the halftime break leading 40-32.
Barton continued to make strides in slicing the margin in the first seven minutes, eventually trailing by two with 13 minutes remaining. Barton's defense kept getting stops, keeping Cowley scoreless for four minutes while stringing together a 9-0 run with Thompson's three-pointer with 12:06 left giving the Cougars its first lead of the game. Robinson concluded the run and following a Cowley free throw to end their scoring drought, Downing's drive to the hoop with Robinson canning a triple pushed the Cougar lead out to 56-49 with 9:26 remaining.
After the Cougars stretched its margin to its largest of nine coming at 65-56 at the 4:56 mark and threatening to blow open the contest, the game took a big turn in the next three minutes.
As Barton went cold, aided by a pair of turnovers, Cowley put points on the board in a variety of ways including Valley canning his third three-pointer of the game capping a 10-0 Cougar run in grabbing a 66-65 lead with 1:36 left.
The Cougars broke through the Tiger full-court press but needed every second of the shot clock before getting a shot airborne coming from Downing's NBA range rain maker drawing nothing but net putting Barton out in front for good. However the Cougars weren't out of the clear until following a Tiger 1-2 trip to the line, Hannes Saar picked a great time for his first points of the game in canning a trey in front of the boisterous Barton student body section for a four point lead with 37 seconds remaining.
The defense held firm, forcing the first of two turnovers the rest of the way, the first resulting in a pair of Saar free throws for a five point edge with 21 seconds before Locandro came up with a steal with 13 ticks left and drained a pair of charity tosses for an eight point advantage.