The Barton County Community College men's basketball team never trailed in its game Wednesday night at Butler County, but Barton was able to shake free from the Grizzlies until a run to start the 2nd half gave Barton a little cushion. The Cougars used a 17-8 run to start the 2nd half separate themselves from Butler and win on the road for the 1st time since January, 82-69, at the Power Plant in El Dorado. The win kept Barton's quickly fading Jayhawk West title hopes alive but more importantly kept them in position to host a playoff game to start the Region VI tournament in two weeks. Barton (23-5) is now 9-5 in the West with 2 more games to play. They are 1 of 4 teams with 5 losses in the West – only 3 of which will get home playoff games. Dodge City, with a win at Pratt Wednesday, now leads the West by 2 games. Butler (11-16) fell to 4-10 in the West, assuring themselves the 8th spot in the West and probable date at Coffeyville to start Region VI play.

Highlights
Barton started out of the gates on an 8-0 run in the opening half but saw Butler whittle away at the lead the entire half while Barton would build it back it up. The Cougars built it to as high as 23-10 on an Ivan Evans layup with 7:58 to play in the half. Barton led 28-20 when Omar Johnson hit a jumper with 5:32 to play in the half but over the next 5 minutes the Cougars would go scoreless. Fortunately for Barton fans, the Grizzlies were only able to trim that lead to 28-26 in those 5 minutes and Barton took a 30-29 lead into the locker room after Butler's Jorge Espino made  his 3rd 3-pointer of the 1st half.

But much like the opening half, Barton got off to a quick start in the 2nd half of play under a barrage of 3-pointers of its own. The Cougars received 3-pointers on 3 straight possessions as Alex Pyle then Johnson then Pyle again hit 3 to give Barton a 47-37 lead with 15 minutes left. And when Pyle hit 3 free throws after being fouled on a 3-pointer, the Cougars again had a 10-point lead (50-40) with 14:46 to play. This time Butler would not get it under 10 points the rest of the game. In fact those 3 free throws started an 11-0 run capped by a Blaine Clark 3-pointer to give Barton a commanding 58-40 lead with 11:30 to play.

The lead reached 67-47 on another Pyle 3-pointer with 8:46 left. Butler would trim it to 10 points with just less than 3 minutes left but would get no closer as the Cougars held on for the road win. Pyle had a season-high 17 points to pace the Cougars, hitting 4-of-6 3's in the process. Evans and Thiago Cordeiro followed Pyle with double doubles as Evans scored 16 to go with 11 rebounds and Cordeiro added 15 to go with 11 boards. Johnson and Chris Jackson added 12 each. For Jackson it was his 3rd double figure outing in the Cougars last 4 games. Johnson added 7 assists 4 steals and committed just 1 turnover in the win. Matt Green added 5 assists. Butler was led by Tony Durant's double-double of 14 points and 13 rebounds but it took the sophomore 6-of-15 shooting to reach that total.

Barton (9-5) is now tied with Pratt (8-5), Cloud (8-5), and Garden (8-5) in the loss column for 2nd place in the West. Dodge City (10-3) looks to win at least a share the West for the 2nd straight year. Hutch (6-7) and Seward (6-7) look to battle for 6th and 7th but both have an outside shot cracking into the top 4 and hosting in the opening round of Region VI play March 7.

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

Next
Sat, Feb 24 – at Hutch, 8 pm (Jayhawk West contest at the Sports Arena in Hutchinson)

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