Barton men’s soccer knocks off No. 17 Garden City

The Barton Community College men's soccer team took another huge step Saturday in keeping within the Jayhawk race knocking off No. 17 ranked Garden City Community College on their home turf 4-2.   Tied at two after the first forty-five minutes, Barton dominated second half action scoring two goals to win their fourth straight game.   Getting some looks in the most recent NJCAA Top-20 poll, the victory improves Barton to 5-1 and 10-1 on the season while the Broncbusters fall two games off the conference title race dropping to 5-2 and 9-2-1 on the season.   The Cougars will have another tough pivotal conference game coming up on Thursday as the Barton travels to Concordia, Kansas, taking on the Thunderbirds of Cloud County Community College (5-2, 7-2) in a 4:00 p.m. kick.

For the third time this season, Renan Sousa distributed three assists in a game as the sophomore standout accounted for all four of the Cougars' goals.  Sousa gave Barton the early edge scoring near post as Juan Barron drew in the defense then sent a through ball for Sousa to finish off just 5:07 into the contest.   

Garden City tied the contest eight minutes later as Jesus Maytorena-Moreno sent a long pass into the box to Jordan Burton who settled and sent a rocket near past reigning conference and national goalkeeper of the week Bruce Turner.

Sousa gave Barton the lead back with 23:27 left in the half sending a beauty of a forty yard pass to Lucas Alves who took two dribbles then blasted a twenty-five yard net shaker to the far post.  Forty-nine seconds later the Broncbusters struck back knotting it up on a perfectly executed give-n-go through the defense from Burton to Erik Renteria-Barragan.

Midway through the second half Sousa delivered the game winning dish with 26:27 to play drawing the defense out left of goal then sent a perfectly placed through ball to Sergio Ribeiro finishing for his second goal of his freshman season.  Three minutes later Sousa completed the hat trick picking up his fourteenth assist of the year with a short pass to Alves kicking in his eleventh goal of his inaugural season.