The No. 16 Barton Community College men's basketball team bounced back from having its title hopes crushed Saturday with an 84-65 win Monday in Chanute over Neosho County Community College. The victory ends the regular season with the Cougars tied for second in the Jayhawk at 21-5 and 25-5 overall while Neosho County dropped to 7-19 and 9-21 on the year.
Losing the tie-breaker to Hutchinson, Barton will have the third seed in the upcoming first round of the Region VI playoffs hosting first round action Thursday at 7:00 p.m. versus 14th seed Dodge City Community College. Reserved parking will still be in effect for the contest but admission is free for fans with open seating available. For those unable to attend the contest, can listen on local radio 104.3FM or find video and audio web links at www.BartonSports.com.
Barton recovered from its traditional slow start to climb within reach before launching a 9-0 close to the half sparked by a Roy Broomfield dunk off of Akeem White's miss. An empty Panther possession later, White would feed Broomfield on the fly in transition. Another empty possession and Elijah Ford's pinpoint pass to Kawanise Wilkins closed the gap to one. The run was complete a short time after as Barton would grab its first lead with forty-eight seconds later as Ford buried a trey as the Cougars would take a 30-28 lead to the break.
After knocking down his eight three-pointer of year giving Barton the lead, Ford began the second frame with a bucket leading a 6-0 start to widen the lead to eight.
An 8-2 Neosho County spurt closed the gap to four with thirteen minutes to play but a Panther technical foul on Marvin Cannon's hoop-n-harm led to four points with Ford reaching double-figures following with a bucket to push the lead to twelve.
The Cougars controlled the final ten plus minutes including scoring the game's last nine points to secure its twelfth victory in thirteen road games.
Cannon came off the bench to lead all scorers on the night with three other Cougars finishing with sixteen each. Leading the trio was Broomfield in making the most of his first collegiate start posting career highs in scoring and adding ten rebounds for the Simonton, Texas, freshman's first double-double. Wilkins and Ford joined Broomfield in the sweet sixteen club while Keshon Montague dished out a team high six dimes.
Tevin Downing led four Panthers in double-digits scoring with fourteen points while dishing out a game high eight dimes. Montrell Dixson and Braden Larcom added twelve each while Jariah Taylor provided eleven off the bench. Lual Dung led in rebounding with thirteen boards to go along with four blocked shots.