Looking to begin 2023 with a victory, the Barton Community College men's basketball team couldn't quite get over the hump from a sixteen point deficit in coming up short 71-64 Wednesday night at Seward County Community College.

The loss drops Barton to 4-5 in league and 9-6 overall while the Saints improve to 5-5 in the Jayhawk and 9-7 on the season.

Barton opens up the spring home portion of the schedule on Saturday looking to christen its refurbished hardwood in hosting Northwest Kansas Technical College in a 4:00 p.m. tip.

Suffering its fifth straight game shooting under 37%, Barton finished at just 32.4% from the field for the second consecutive outing and an identical 3-of-20 from beyond the arc from its previous contest back on December 12 at Butler. The Cougars also didn't help their cause with another sub-par performance from the free throw line in sinking just 15-of-27 (55.6%) including going 2-of-4 late in the game that could have cut the deficit under three at the time.

Seward County wasn't much better from beyond the arc (3-of-17) nor from the stripe (18-of-27) but connected on 41.7% of their overall shots.

Joseph Locandro again led three Cougars in double-figure scoring with 24 points on 10-of-17 shooting and collecting 7 rebounds. Cougar Downing dumped in 14 of his 16 points in second half action while Hannes Saar finished with 13 points. Mozae Downing-Rivers distributed seven assists with Cooper Jackson helping his cause for the Region's top theft leader in recording four steals in twenty minutes of action.

Mario Whitley was the big force for the Saints and the only to reach double figures behind a 20 point and 13 rebound performance. Wilson Dubinsky, who canned consecutive three-pointers helping keep Barton at arm's length, contributed 9 points as did Jaylin Henderson.

The Cougars spread the wealth amongst four different players in getting out to a 7-2 start. Essentially trading points the next few minutes, the Saints' 6-0 spurt took their first lead at the 10:25 mark.

Following Locandro's inside bucket for his then ninth point of the contest tying it at 14, Seward County responded with the next seven straight including drawing Locandro's second foul resulting in a 21-14 home lead with 8:21 to play.

With Locandro sent to the bench for the next five minutes, along with Downing and Downing-Rivers also playing through foul problems resulting in the big three ending the half with two fouls each, the Saints outscored Barton 19-14 the remaining eight minutes.

The Saints strung another seven straight and following Aime Rutayisire's pair of free throws, another five straight pushed the lead out to sixteen with under three to play.

Back into the lineup, Locandro outscored the Saints 5-2 in the final two minutes for his 14th point of the half drawing the Cougars within 40-28 at the break.

After Seward County opened up the second half scoring, Barton got back in the game with a 9-2 stretch including four more from Locandro in cutting the deficit to seven.

As Locandro picked up his third foul at the 15:17 mark, Barton was able to slice it to six following Downing and Saar going 1-of-2 each from the stripe. The Saints then quickly pushed it back to nine on a dunk and And-1.

The margin held at nine into the midpoint, Dubinsky burying his pair of triples in front of the Seward County bench just inside the ten minute mark as the Saints would eventually push their lead back out to 11 with 6:24 left.

Locandro's six consecutive points kept Barton in the gym with Downing's floater and Saar's two-handed jam cutting the gap to five with 2:53 remaining. The Saints went cold for three minutes within Barton's 8-0 run but a pair of 1-of-2 trips to the line left the Cougars unable to slice it within three at 67-64 with 1:08 left.

Barton held steady defensively on the Saints' next possession, forcing a deep late shot clock attempt but the subsequent long rebound went to the home team as a pair of free throws all but sealed the game with 34 seconds left.

The Cougars came up empty on their next two trips to the offensive end resulting in two additional Saints free throws for the final seven point victory.