The 13th ranked Barton Community College men's soccer team got off to a solid start in conference play Wednesday afternoon at Cougar Field registering a 4-1 victory over Garden City Community College.
Improving to 4-1 overall Barton next heads to La Junta, Colorado, for its second weekend in a row of back-to-back matches. The Cougars will take on Trinidad State College at 6:00 p.m. Saturday before facing host Otero College at 2:00 p.m. Sunday. Garden City's loss drops the Broncbusters to 2-3-0 on the season and will look to regroup Friday against the reserve squad of York College.
Despite outshooting Garden City 12-5 in the opening 45-minutes, Barton would rattle the net just once in the opening stanza coming in the 14th minute as the brilliant play of Francesco Boher's chip pass and Tajay Grant's through ball producing a six-yard far post strike from the charging Victor Lucca for his first of the season.
The Cougar offense came out hot from the intermission, lighting up the scoreboard with three tallies in less than a three minute span with two coming just 22 seconds apart.
A penalty kick started the scoring just over seven minutes into the second half with Grant capitalizing on the 12-yard 1-v-1 attempt against Garden City's keeper Branko Kanacki after getting taken down charging in from the left side of the eighteen.
Just 22 seconds later Genildo Postimo widened the Cougar lead to three dialing up a free-kick beauty from 25-yards out placing it perfectly under the crossbar and over the outstretched gloves of Kanacki.
Barton's final lamp lighter came with 34:07 remaining with Grant striking for a second time banking a loose ball from Boher's corner kick off a Broncbuster defender.
Holding a clean sheet for 89:42, the bid for a shutout would disperse with a mere 18 seconds remaining as Soulo Letsoalo's cross found the Broncbusters' leading scorer Theom Samba sneaking behind the Cougar defense for a perfectly placed header to the back of the net.
Barton again outshot Garden City in second half play, launching 10 shots to the Broncbusters five. Shots on frame had Barton with five as Garden City put two between the pipes.
Dennis Bottcher improved to 3-1 in net for the Cougars rejecting his lone shot faced in 63:03 of action while Victor Goscinski patrolled the net in the final 26:57 denying one of his two shots faced.