Draining a season high thirteen three-pointers, the Barton Community College men's basketball team downed Independence Community College 106-83 Saturday on Hall of Fame Day at the Barton Gym.
The Cougars erased a five point deficit five minutes into the contest by rattling off ten straight points in a 14-2 stretch to never trail again in the final thirty-one minutes, placing five Cougars in double digit scoring including scoring 58 second half points in sweeping the season series.
Barton improves to 6-9 in league play and 12-9 on the season while Independence falls to 6-11 in conference and 9-14 overall.
Prior to the contest, Barton recognized its 2022 Sports Hall of Fame Inductees, Jeff Beaman from the tennis program, Christi (Ensz) Rife of the volleyball and basketball programs, and longtime booster and contributor David Foss.
Next up is a pair of road games, Wednesday at Coffeyville followed by a Saturday matinee at Cloud County. Barton's next home game comes Monday, February 7, in hosting Colby at 7:00 p.m. to make up their previous postponed January 12th date.
Scoring seven of the points in the big stretch, Cougar Downing knocked 4-of-5 shots behind the arc in first half action while Keith Robinson keyed another 12-0 stretch with a pair of treys in finishing 4-of-4 from deep in the opening twenty minutes.
Barton connected on 10-of-15 in the first half to lead by twelve, finishing 13-of-23 for the game for a season high performance and a 52.1% overall shooting afternoon. Independence drained 11 three-pointers in the game in their 29 attempts, finishing at a 41.1% clip for the game.
Outrebounding their opponent for the 16th time of the season, the Cougars hauled down 51 boards to the Pirates' 38.
Downing eclipsed the 20-point mark for the fourth straight game and ninth time of the season, finishing with 27 points on 10-of-18 shooting, 5-of-8 beyond the arc, and grabbed 5 rebounds and dished out 4 assists. Hannes Saar led the team's 22-assist on 38 made baskets with five dimes and adding 19 points while Robinson's 16 points finished a point shy of matching his career high. Evans Kipruto, who scored Barton's first eight points, also added 16 points, to go along with 6 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. Trey Bates III rounded out the double-digit scorers with 13 points on 2-of-4 long distance shooting, dishing out 3 assists and 2 steals while pulling down a career high 7 rebounds. Myles Thompson led the Cougar glass cleaners with 11 boards, four on the offensive end, and added 8 points.
Three Pirates scored at least 20 points each led by Ian Hardy knocking down 4-of-9 beyond the arc for 22 points and grabbing 8 rebounds. Jordan Clark joined Hardy with team high rebound honors, canning 3-for-3 from deep in scoring 21 points, while Ty Butner provided a spark off the bench with 20 points.
RECAP
Kipruto scored Barton's first eight points of the game as the teams seesawed the lead through the opening three plus minutes. The Pirates surged ahead on five straight and following a pair of Downing slices in the lane, increased their final lead of the game to three at 15-12 with 12:38 remaining.
Beginning with Saar's slash through the paint, the Cougars continued on a 10-0 two-minute run getting a pair of Downing long distance splashes on either side of Trey Rolfs' cut to the hoop finishing off a Kipruto pass through the lane.
The margin went to ten after Downing's bucket and a Robinson trey with the Pirates countering with their own long distant shot with 8:06 left. The Cougars then held Independence scoreless for the next four minutes, meanwhile going on its own 12-0 knocking down four additional triples in a row, Robinson splashing two more with Bates and Saar also knocking down one each.
After a Pirate bucket to end their drought, Downing gave Barton its largest first half lead of twenty in burying another triple with 4:18 left. The Pirates countered with five straight, trading a Robinson trey for Barton and Hardy for Independence, before Downing canned his fourth three-pointer and 18th point of the half. The eighteen point lead dwindled to twelve into the halftime break as Independence scored the final six points.
Barton maintained a double-digit lead through the first twelve minutes until consecutive Clark treys brought Independence to within nine at 74-65. Thompson's offensive put back pushed the lead back out but a pair of Pirate free throws would again slice the deficit to nine with 6:29 left.
It took Barton just ninety seconds to stretch the lead back out to eighteen, Saar sparking an 11-2 run with a layup and adding a pair of free throws. Saar would later add a trio of dunks, the first coming on Bates' drive to the cup laying up an oop pass resulting in a two-hand flush and last one coming from a sweet Josh Jordan dish pushing the lead to twenty with 2:35 to play.
Thompson's back-to-back buckets put the Cougars over the century mark for 3rd time this year with Walker Moore closing out the afternoon's scoring banging a triple in front of the Barton bench with 32 seconds left.