Cougars move to 2-0 in West with over defending West champion Garden
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team is beginning to show the rest of the Jayhawk Conference it is indeed a team that wants to compete for the Jayhawk West title. While the Cougars are on probation and can not win the West title, Barton can still finish the season with the best record and call themselves champs. While that is a long ways off and very tough road to follow, the Cougars are off to a good start, adding a win over defending West champion Garden City Saturday at the Barton County to go along with their win over the defending Region VI champion Pratt Wednesday night in Pratt. Barton won 76-70 in its West home opener to move to 2-0 in the conference and 14-2 overall. That puts the Cougars in a 1st place tie with Cloud County at the top of the West standings. Garden fell to 1-1 in the West and 12-3 overall.

Highlights
Barton jumped out to an early lead on the Broncbusters at 9-3 and 18-8 and held that lead most of the contest. Barton still led by 10 late in the 2nd half at 34-24 before Garden City closed the halftime margin to 3 with a 9-2 run to end the half. Barton led 36-33 at intermission.

The 1st 13 minutes of the 2nd half saw the two teams trade the lead 4 times with the score being tied 6 times. But Barton would not the trail again following a Chris Berry offensive rebound and put back with 6:31 to play for a 59-58 Barton lead. Garden City would tie the game one more time at 62-all on a Roy Bright jumper with 4:10 to play but the Cougars would respond quickly as Ivan Evans knocked down a 3-pointer just 16 seconds later to give Barton the lead for good. Barton hit 7-of-8 free throws the final 3 minutes to secure the win and stay in a tie for the lead in the West. That lead is just two teams now with Barton and Cloud County the remaining unbeatens in the West.

Berry led Barton with 25 points in the win, hitting 10-of-16 shots. Evans showed his 24-point debut at Pratt Wednesday night was no fluke, netting 20 points on a 6-of-9 night from the floor and a 6-of-6 night at the charity stripe. Evans hit 2-of-3 treys on the game as well. In addition to his good shooting, the freshman from Philadelphia added 11 rebounds for his 1st double-double as a Cougar. Dominique White suffered through a 4-of-16 shooting night to finish with 13 while Thiago Cordeiro ended with 11 rebounds and 6 blocks. Cordeiro now has 62 blocks this season, on pace to pass Robert Whaley (100) for 3rd all-time at Barton and close to the pace of 117 by David Harris for 2nd. Cordeiro will probably not reach the single-season mark of Alek Radojevic's 153 blocks in a 38-game season. With no post-season, Cordeiro will only have 30 games this year.

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

Next
Wed, Jan 11 – at Colby, 8 pm (Jayhawk West game at the Community Building in Colby)

-30-

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