Barton drops heartbreaker to Pratt in West play
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team led nearly the entire basketball game but once again couldn't put their opponents away. And, once again, it came back to bite them. The Cougars saw their lead – double digit for a portion of the 2nd half – disappear with a 66-64 loss to Pratt Saturday at the Barton County Gym. The loss drops Barton to 3-6 in the West and 15-8 overall while Pratt keeps its West title hopes alive, improving to 5-4 in West play and 16-7 overall. The Cougars are back in action Wednesday when they travel to Garden City to take on the Broncbusters in an 8 pm tip.

Highlights
After trading the lead for a portion of the 1st half, Barton took a 13-11 lead with 13:30 to play in the half and kept that lead for a long time. The lead grew to 35-23 just prior to half but a 6-0 run by Pratt to end the half cut the lead to just 6.

Barton kept that lead for much of the 2nd half, stretching it to double digits on a couple of occasions. The Cougars put together a 6-0 run in the early stages of the half to grab a 47-35 lead with just more than 14 minutes to play. The Cougars still led by 11 with 12 minutes to play in the contest. Pratt whittled the lead to 4 but a Reggie Love layup 6 minutes left gave Barton a 59-50 lead. Pratt knocked down 3 treys during a 13-2 run, however, to take its 1st lead of the 2nd half at 63-61 with 3 minutes left.

Pratt led 66-64 in the final seconds when Ivan Evans put up a 3-pointer from the left corner to win the game, but the ball bounded long and a tip to tie the game came after the buzzer.

Dominique White, Reggie Love, and Thiago Cordeiro each scored 14 points to pace the Cougars with Cordeiro adding 11 points to give him a double-double. He just missed his 2nd straight triple-double, recording 8 blocks during the loss. Akeen Nixon scored 15 points on 5-of-5 3-point shooting to lead Pratt.

Stats
Full stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Wed, Feb 8 – at Garden City, 8 pm (Jayhawk West game at the Perryman Activities Center)

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Check out Barton County Basketball Online at www.bartonccc.edu/sports