John Williams' three-pointer deep in the corner with 2.8 seconds remaining saved the Barton Community College men's basketball team with a thrilling 87-86 victory over Pratt Community College Monday night at the Barton Gym.
The second straight escape improves Barton to 5-2 in conference play with the fourth straight victory improving to 14-2. Pratt drops to 1-7 in West action and 8-9 overall. The Cougars head to Dodge City Community College on Wednesday for a 7:30 p.m. before completing the week on Saturday hosting Colby Community College.
Despite building a fifteen point first half lead, Barton couldn't provide the knock-out punch as Pratt cut the margin to nine at the halftime break. The Beavers kept the momentum coming out of the locker room in outscoring the Cougars 17-5 in the first five minutes to surge ahead by three with 14:46 to play.
The Cougars appeared to finally put Pratt away in a three minute stretch, going on a 14-4 run as Leondre Washington pumped in nine of the points including giving Barton an 82-72 lead with 5:08 left on his 5th three-pointer of the game.
Pratt countered with three straight long range shots closing to within one at the 3:29 mark, temporarily halted by a pair of Martin Vogts free throws before tacking on five more points for the two point late lead.
Going 11-13 from the free throw line including the final three tosses, Drew Maschoff's hot shooting came up one shy as his miss on the back end of two tosses left the door open for the Cougars with twelve seconds on the clock.
Washington secured the miss in moving up the floor, dropping to Vogts above the circle. Covered up on a three attempt, Vogts split the defense finding Williams on a great kick-out pass to spoil Pratt's 14-2 closing stretch of the game in burying the pocket corner shot sending the Cougars to their sixth straight win of the series.
Washington dropped a new career thirty-one points with an all-around solid floor game of dishing five dimes to just two turnovers from the point guard position to go along with a near perfect 8-of-9 from the charity stripe. Akeem White provided an inside and outside threat for sixteen points including a thunderous dunk and a three-pointer with six boards in twenty-three minutes while Vogts' game winning assist was preceded by burying 4-of-8 from long range for fourteen points.
Tyvon Taylor and Maschoff each tallied twenty-one points to lead the Beavers combining for 5-of-13 from three-point land with Taylor dishing out a game high six assists while Maschoff's stellar performance from the charity stripe and seven rebounds were a big part of the upset bid. The region's leading scorer Blake Furcron was held five below his average with sixteen points which included 3-of-6 from long range.