The Barton Community College men's basketball team won its second straight home game by double digits as the Cougars knocked off Colby Community College 72-58 in a make-up date of the team's previously January scheduled contest.
Barton led for nearly the entire game Monday night but needed a pair of three-pointers late in holding off the Trojans' rally in winning its third straight in the teams' series.
The victory improves the Cougars to 8-10 in the conference play and 14-10 overall while Colby slides to 9-8 and 14-9 on the season.
Barton concludes its brief two-game home stand on Wednesday in hosting Pratt Community College in a 7:30 p.m. tip before traveling to Butler Community College on Saturday.
Four Cougars finished in double figures led by the 24 points behind 3-of-6 shooting behind the arc and 4 assists from Cougar Downing. Reaching double digits for the fifth straight game, Trey Bates III put up 12 points, including dropping his second three-pointer prior to Downing's third triple as the pair all but sealed the contest pushing the lead to eleven with two minutes remaining. Keith Robinson came off the bench to spark the Cougars draining a pair of triples on the way to a 10 point night while Myles Thompson also added 10 points along with 12 rebounds in posting his second collegiate double-double.
Tyrone Marshall, Jr., led Colby with 13 points and 8 rebounds, Ahmad Johnson contributed 11 points, and Ahmad Galimore added 10 points.
Barton connected on 7-of-15 shots beyond the arc (46.7%) to out shoot their game overall percentage of 43.8%. In contrast, Colby was ice cold from deep in making just 1-of-20 in their overall 38.9% shooting.
Thompson's five offensive rebounds led Barton's 15 on the offensive glass, outrebounding the Trojans 45-40 for the Cougars' 19th time of controlling the boards in the season's 23 games.
RECAP
The Cougars only trailed twice, the first coming after a Colby 1-of-2 trip to the line fourteen seconds into the game with the second time coming after a steal and transition layup for a 3-2 lead with 18:50 left in the half. Kipruto's four straight keyed a 6-0 spurt putting Barton in front the rest of the 38:28 minutes of action.
Seven straight midway through the opening frame opened up Barton's first double digit lead with Trey Rolfs and Downing connecting on floaters in the lane and Robinson canning a right wing trey for a 23-13 lead.
Colby chipped away through the next six minutes, cutting the deficit to four before the Cougars pushed the margin out to its largest of thirteen responding with a 9-0 run. Downing's lone triple of first half action started the run followed by Modibo Sanogo scoring the next four with Bates capping the stretch with 25 seconds left on a drive through the paint but an offensive rebound put back by the Trojans at the buzzer sent the teams to the locker room eleven points apart.
Bates' steal and transition layup highlighted Barton's 5-0 spurt pushing the Cougars' lead to its largest of 14 just three minutes into the final frame.
As Barton cooled off and couldn't buy a bucket, the Trojans outscored the Cougars 17-4 over the next eight minutes in drawing to within five with 11:38 left.
Five straight from Downing on the Cougars' next pair of possessions provided a little breathing room but the lead hovered around the 5-7 point range for the next seven minutes until big long range shots all but sealed the victory.
Nursing a six point lead, Bates capped off his night drilling a step-back deep three-pointer with 2:28 to play. Following the Trojans coming up empty from the charity stripe, Bates found Downing for a corner pocket net swisher increasing the lead to eleven with 2:08 left. From there the Trojans couldn't buy a point either from the field or the free throw line as Downing made 3-of-4 from the stripe to close out the scoring.