Barton drops 4th straight with 79-71 loss at Seward
The Barton County Community College men's basketball team is finding the road tough going in the Jayhawk West the 2nd time around, dropping its 4th straight game – 3 of them on the road – with a 79-71 loss to Seward County at the Green House in Liberal Wednesday night. The Cougars fell behind by 20 points in the opening half and could not recover, falling to 7-5 in the West and 21-5 overall. Seward improved to 5-6 and 14-10 overall. Barton returns home after back-to-back road games, hosting Garden City Saturday at the Barton Gym.

Highlights
As has been the pattern the past few games, Barton got off to a slow start in the contest, struggling to score in the opening half of play. Barton scored just 9 points the opening 10 minutes, trailing by a 17-9 score. Things didn't get any better as Barton fell behind 44-24 in the final minute of the opening half before cutting the lead to 44-27 on a 3-pointer just before half.

Barton put a run on the Saints to start the 2nd half, opening with a blitz 13-2 run in the 1st 4 minutes to make it a 46-40 game. But Seward slowly built that lead back to 15 points at 62-47 with 10 minutes to play. Barton would again cut the lead to 6 at 66-60 with 5 minutes still to play but that would be as close as the Cougars would get as Seward held on for a 79-71 win.

The Cougars were paced by Ivan Evans with 18 points while Omar Johnson and Thiago Cordeiro each added 10 points. Evans also corralled 14 rebounds to lead the Cougars. Johnson added 7 assists. Theron Wilson had 14 points and 16 rebounds for the Saints. Michael Tyree led 4 Saints in double figures with 16.

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

Next
Sat, Feb 17 – at Garden, 8 pm (Jayhawk West contest at the Barton Gym in Great Bend)

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