Cougars end skid with double OT win over Garden, 110-97 
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team hooked up in a classic Saturday night at the Barton County Gym with Garden City. On a busy night of festivities that including Homecoming and the 2007 Barton Hall of Fame inductions, Barton and Garden keep the crowd around even longer, playing a pair of overtimes before the Cougars finally put to rest their 4-game losing skid with a 110-97 win over Garden in double overtime. The win kept the Cougars in contention for the Jayhawk West title and moved them a step close to assuring themselves a home playoff game in the upcoming Region VI Tournament. The Cougars improved to 8-5 in the West and 22-5 overall this season. Garden City falls into 2nd place in the West with the loss at 8-4. Barton will continue its effort for a West title with a trip to El Dorado Wednesday to take on Butler County.

Highlights
Losing streaks often don't break easily and for the Cougars their 4-game skid most certainly wasn't an easy string to break. The Cougars dominated the early stages of the contest, leading 9-0 out of the blocks, by as many as 16 in the opening half and took a 47-35 lead to halftime. Barton pushed the lead to 15 early in the half and still led by double digits 76-66 with just 4 minutes to play. But Garden wouldn't go away and when Julian Allen hit a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left, the Broncbusters had tied the score at 82-all.

Garden took its 1st lead of the game early in the overtime at 84-82 on a pair of free throws and still led 88-87 on an Allen layup with 1:42 to play. Two Thiago Cordeiro free throws gave Barton the lead back and Ivan Evans pushed it to 91-88 with 9 seconds left with 2 more free throws. But Allen wasn't done with his heroics, hitting a running 3-pointer at the buzzer to even the score at 91-all.

But in the 2nd overtime it was all Barton. Garden City didn't score until just more 2 minutes remained in the 2nd extra session after Barton had built a 99-91 lead. From there, it was a matter of converting free throws for the Cougars to ensure the win. Barton did just that.

The Cougars put 4 players in double figures – 3 of them topped the 20-point mark. Thiago Cordeiro led Barton with 24 points followed by Omar Johnson with 22 and Chris Jackson with 21. Ivan Evans added 14 for the Cougars. Cordeiro and Evans each had double-doubles with Cordeiro collecting 15 rebounds and Evans 13. Garden was paced by Allen with 36 points while Yima Chia-Kur tossed in 23 in the losing effort.

Barton will now hit the road for a pair of game, traveling to Butler Wednesday and Hutchinson Saturday for two very big West games. Barton will end its regular season at home against Colby on Feb. 28.

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

Next
Wed, Feb 21 – at Butler, 8 pm (Jayhawk West contest at the Power Plant in El Dorado)

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Check out Barton County Basketball Online atwww.bartonccc.edu/sports