Barton wraps up home playoff spot with win over Colby
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team completed the regular season on a winning note, closing out Colby in the final minutes to open up a close game for an 87-69 win at the Barton County Gym Wednesday night. Barton never trailed in the contest, but had to struggle for the win. The win, along with a loss by Garden City at Hutchinson, wrapped up a home playoff spot for the Cougars, who will finish at least 4th in the West thanks to owning the tiebreaker over Garden. Barton ends its regular season with a 24-6 record and a 10-6 mark in the West. The Cougars could still finish as high as 3rd with a loss by Cloud Saturday. A Cloud wins give the Cougars 4th place. Colby is now 1-14 in the West and 5-24 overall this season. Colby still has one game to play. Barton will now wait to see who its opponent will be in the opening round of the tournament Wednesday.
Highlights
The Cougars led briefly by double digits in the opening half and took a 47-38 to halftime. But the Cougars not shake the team that will finish last in the West. In fact, Colby, down 54-50 early in the 2nd half, trimmed the lead to 58-57 with 13 minutes still to play in the game. The score was still 61-60 with 11 minutes left before the Cougars went on a run to close out the game.
A quick 5-0 run gave Barton a 66-60 lead following an Ivan Evans dunk. That lead grew to 80-64 as Barton continue to apply the pressure to the Trojans. A Chris Jackson layup gave the Cougars that 16-point lead with 3 minutes to play as Colby went 8 minutes scoring just 4 points. The Cougars led by as many as 21 before settling for the 18-point win.
Omar Johnson led Barton, topping the 20-point mark for the 1st time in 10 games, tossing in 21 to pace 5 Cougars in double figures. Jackson came off the bench for 17, Thiago Cordeiro added 16, Matt Green 11 and Evans 10. Green just missed his 1st double-double, handing out a career-high 9 assists for Barton. Evans did get the double-double with 12 rebounds. Irvan Meyers hit 7-of-9 3-pointers to lead Colby with 21.
The Cougars will now wait and see who they will play in Region VI action but the candidates remaingin, Cowley, Allen, KCK, Fort Scott or Labette.
Stats
Full stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports
Next
Wed, March 7 – v TBD, 7 pm (Region VI playoffs at the Barton Gym in Great Bend)
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