Barton beats Garden in return to West action
The Barton Community College men's basketball team returned to Jayhawk West action with a 73-66 win over Garden City Wednesday night at the Barton Gym. Barton used a big 2nd half – outscoring Garden by a 52-38 margin to secure the win. The Cougars improved to 2-1 in the West and 12-5 overall on the season. Garden fell to 0-2 in the West and 9-7 overall. The Cougars will be on the road for the next two contests after starting the West season out with 3 homes dates. Barton will travel to El Dorado Saturday for a 7:30 pm tip against Butler. Monday the Cougars will drive to Dodge City to take on the Conquistadors in a game originally scheduled for Dec. 8.

Highlights
After a brief 2-0 lead, Barton was on the trailing end of the score the entire 1st half, falling behind by 10 points at the 5 minute mark, 24-14. The Cougars trailed by 10 for a 2nd time in the half but got halftime down just 28-21 as Barton hit just 38 percent in the opening half and Garden just 36 percent.

The offensive tempo picked up in the 2nd half of action as soon as the ball was inbounded. The two teams combined to score 22 points in the opening 3 minutes after combining for just 49 the entire 1st half. Barton scored 13 of those 22 points and even tied the score briefly before Garden retook a 37-34 lead with 17:11 to play in the game. Garden City continued to hold a lead of 1-4 points until a Joe Reid jumper gave Barton a 44-43 lead with 11:52 to play in the game.

The team traded the lead the next 11 minutes with the 10th and final tie of the contest coming with 52 seconds to play following a steal by Dennan Morrow who found Karon Burton for a layup to even the mark at 65-all. Burton was fouled on the play and hit the free throw for a 66-65 lead that was the 10th and final lead change of the contest. The Cougars all but locked the game up when Colin Beatty grabbed a missed Butler free throw and found Ron Baker beyond all the Garden defenders for a fast-break dunk and a 70-66 lead with 13 seconds to play.

Barton sizzled from the floor in the 2nd half hitting nearly 60 percent of its shots on the way to the 52-point half. Burton led Barton with 24 in the win. He was joined in double figures by Baker with 16 and Beatty with 14. For Beatty it was his 6th double-double of the year as he added a game-high 11 rebounds. Beatty also handed out 7 assists to lead the Cougars. Garden was led by Vince Banks with 16 points followed by Solomon Brown with 14 and Chris McHenry 13. Brown and Henry combined to shoot 8-of-15 from behind the 3-point line.

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

Next
Jan 16 – at Butler 7:30 pm (Jayhawk West play at the Power Plant in El Dorado)

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