A 26-point victory earlier in the season was distant memory for the Barton Community College men's basketball team Wednesday night as the Saints of Seward County Community College handed the Cougars revenge inside the Greenhouse with a 29-point defeat, 81-52.
Suffering their largest defeat in the series since 2019 falling by 19, the Cougars drop to 9-12 in KJCCC play and slide to 15-12 on the season while the win moves the Saints a game back of Barton in the conference standings at 8-14 and 11-17 overall.
Barton will look to rest its' two game losing streak Wednesday night welcoming in the Mavericks of Northwest Kansas Technical College in a 7:30 p.m. tip.
Keith Robinson led just two Cougars in double figure scoring adding a new career high 15 points all of which coming in second half action. Cougar Downing rounded out the double-digit scoring adding 10 points.
The Saints were led by the double-double effort of Taye Donald scoring 17 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Harvin Ibarguen fell one point back adding 16 points on 8-of-9 shooting from the floor while Jaylin Henderson added 14 points off the bench with Branton McCrary rounded the double-digit scoring for the Saints adding 10 points while dishing out a game high five assists.
After posting its' second worst percentage of the season in Saturday's loss at Butler, the offensive woes lingered into Monday's game as Barton produced its' worst percentage output of the season finishing 32.7 percent (16-of-49) for the game while the Saints shot a scorching 49.2 percent (30-of-61) supported by an opening half 57.1 percentage (16-of-28).
The Cougars finished on the plus side in the rebound category for the 22nd time this year outrebounding the Saints by three (35-32) but dropped the turnover battle for the 20th time this year committing 17 of their 22 in the opening half finishing on the wrong side of the points off turnovers 20-8.
RECAP
The night couldn't have started much worse for the Cougars, missing their first eight shots from the field digging a 9-0 hole until De'Antray Hughes cleaned up a Downing missed triple giving Barton its' first bucket at the 15-minute mark.
Another cold stretch leading to a 7-0 Saints run pushed the margin to double digits with Downing's lone splash halting a three-minute scoreless stretch clawing Barton to within 16-5.
It was all Seward for the final 12 minutes of the opening half as 10-0 and 13-0 runs had the deficit at 41-9 in the final seconds before Josh Jordan sank one-of-two at the free throw line putting the Cougars in double digits scoring as the halftime margin stood at 41-10.
A Myles Thompson one-of-two trip at the charity stripe and basket from Evans Kipruto strung Barton's first back-to-back points with 17:42 to play.
Seward's largest lead came at the 8:35 mark holding a 39-point advantage while Barton clawed back piecing their first back-to-back field goals three minutes later on a pair of Robinson jumpers.
Barton pieced together its' largest run of the game with 3:57 to play on a 7-0 run as Robinson's 2-for-2 trip at the line succeeded Trey Rolfs pick of the pocket layup and a Walker Moore corner triple.