Chewing on a bitter home defeat four days prior, a determined 21st ranked Barton Community College men's basketball team stayed the course Saturday evening at the Hutchinson Sports Arena before putting up 59 second half points to knock off 9th ranked Hutchinson Community College 101-75.
The Cougars' strong guard play survived the constant full-court press from the Blue Dragons, taking care of the ball and leading to transition buckets. Trailing by two at the halftime break, Barton stayed steady with the plan in the final twenty minutes producing a twenty-eight point margin in knocking down timely long range shots, controlling the rebounds, and getting to the free throw line to convert at nearly an 88% success of the charity tosses.
Posting its largest margin of victory in just its 13th win in fifty-eight trips to the Arena, Barton improves to 2-1 in the Jayhawk and 7-2 overall while Hutchinson slides to 2-2 and 8-2 on the season. The Cougars will look to continue the momentum into Wednesday's home contest against Independence Community College. A 7:30 p.m. tip-off time is slated.
Piling up seventeen points in the opening ten minutes in part to the guard play, Joseph Locandro finished with a career high 30 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in posting his fifth double-double of the year. Also putting up double numbers, Hannes Saar recorded his third straight, scoring 11 points and adding 10 rebounds helping Barton to a plus-16 advantage on the boards.
Cougar Downing, who drained one of his three-pointers on a step-back trey putting Barton over the century mark, finished with 24 points with six rebounds. Making the most of his first collegiate start, Cooper Jackson reached double figures with 12 points while sharing with Saar for team high honors with three steals.
Mozae Downing-Rivers distributed 7 assists with 5 points and 5 rebounds as the Cougars had 21 assists on their 33 made baskets.
Aaron Franklin started on fire for the Blue Dragons with eight of the team's first twelve points, finishing eight below his Region VI leading average after scoring just two in the final twenty minutes for 17 total points. Antonio Green and Kieran Carr each had 12 points and Jackson Leyba finished with 10.