The Barton Community College men's basketball team utilized a strong first half close and fast second half start Saturday afternoon at the Barton Gym earning a 74-57 victory over Seward County Community College.
Tied five times over the opening 13-minutes, the Cougars benefitted behind an 11-0 run with under five minutes to play in the opening stanza building up a nine point advantage before settling for a six point, 37-31 lead at the break. Scoring the opening six points to start the second half to build up a 12 point lead that lingered up to 19, the Cougars never allowed Seward County to within eight over the final 14-minutes.
Matching their largest win streak of the season with four straight, the national receiving vote Cougars split the season series with Seward while remaining tied for third place in the KJCCC standings at 14-7 and 19-8 on the season while the Saints drop to 9-13 in conference play and 13-15 overall.
Barton will look to sustain the momentum Wednesday night making the long trip out west for an 8:30 p.m. (Central Time) tip-off at Northwest Kansas Technical College.
Getting balanced scoring all around, Ring Malith helped pace the Cougars plus-27 bench scoring adding a game high 20 points and hauling down a team and new season high nine rebounds. Cougar Downing and Mozae Downing-Rivers rounded out the double-figure scoring for Barton each adding 12. After tying for ninth most points in a career on Wednesday night, Downing moved into sole possession of ninth all-time now sitting at 1,046 career points trailing eighth place Eric Bush's 1,103 coming during the 1999-01 seasons. Cooper Jackson distributed a team high five assists to go along with three more steals to maintain his conference leading 3.5 thefts per game.
Blessin Kimble led a trio of Saints in double-figures collecting the games lone double-double with 14 points and 17 rebounds. Jaylin Henderson recorded 15 points while Mario Whitley rounded out the double figure scoring for Seward adding 12 points.
RECAP
The opening 13-minutes were a slugfest with neither team gaining more than a five point separation in which featured nine lead changes and five ties. Seward County grasped its' final lead after a pair of Henderson tosses with 6:56 to play.
Barton quickly turned the tide as the first of two Malith splashing's from outside sparked an 11-0 stretch swaying all the momentum in favor of the Cougars with an Aime Rutayisire And-1 mixed between the Malith trey's and Downing layup capping the 1:42 stretch furnishing Barton its' largest lead of the half up nine with 4:15 left.
The Saints would trim the deficit to four till a Stefan Spray layup in the closing minute sent Barton into the locker rooms up six, 37-31.
A Rutayisire layup on the Cougars opening possession of the second half keyed an early six point stretch out of the locker rooms giving Barton its' first double-digit lead of 12, 43-31 with 15:56 to play.
Seward County would keep it within the nine point range over the next eight minutes before a Hannes Saar rise and shine, pair of Rutayisire tosses from the charity stripe and Malith slam sparked a 6-0 stretch building the Cougar lead back to double figures, 67-52.
A Downing jumper and Malith's fifth dial up from long distance sparked a mini 5-0 run building Barton its' largest lead of 19 with 2:23 to play while a pair of Amiri Ndayisaba tosses closed out the Cougar scoring with 38-ticks left on the clock.