The Barton Community College men's basketball team led early but unfortunately, it was one of the few bright spots Wednesday night in El Dorado as Butler Community College rolled to an 87-70 victory.
The loss snapped Barton's four-game win streak at the Power Plant as the Cougars drop their third straight contest of the year, each coming against the top three teams in the Jayhawk East, sliding to 1-4 in conference play and 2-4 overall. The Grizzlies picked up their first win since 2015 against the Cougars on their home floor, improving to 4-2 in league and 6-2 overall.
Next opportunity for Barton to turn the tide comes Saturday at 4:00 p.m. in hosting Cloud County Community College.
The Cougars gave up a season high 47.3% shooting from the field while shooting a season worst 43.1%, but the big differences came from beyond the arc on Butler's three more made three-pointers and a twelve point margin coming at the free throw line. The Grizzlies sank 26-of-34 charity tosses while the Cougars made just 14-of-22 including missing the front end of three 1-and-1 situations and the back end of two And-1 opportunities.
Ten Barton players reached the scoring column with Justin Harmon leading three Cougars in double digits with 18 points. Desean Munson added 15 points with Asanti Price scoring fourteen in part to 3-of-7 shooting beyond the arc and two thunderous first half dunks and a team leading eight rebounds. Price was joined in team high distribution honors by the effort of Joe Jones off the bench with four assists each.
Shawn Hopkins led all scorers in putting 20 of his 29 points on the first half scoreboard. Noah Thomasson contributed 20, ten coming from the charity stripe and six from beyond the arc, while leading a plus eight Grizzly rebound advantage with a team high eight boards and six assists. DeeJun Pruitt added 19 points in combining with Hopkins and Thomasson in burying 6-of-7 beyond the arc.
Recap
Barton had its largest lead of three at 13-10 coming after Harmon's three-pointer, and again following a pair of Butler free throws as Willie Lapoole connected on Jones' third assist in less than three minutes coming off the bench.
Following a Grizzly three-pointer to tie it at fifteen, a pair of Shawn Warrior charity tosses gave Barton its final lead at 17-15 with 12:20 remaining before Butler stepped it up another gear.
Thomas King's jumper halted a Butler seven straight surge in taking the lead for good, then tacked on nine more within its 16-2 six minute pivotal stretch with 8:37 remaining as the Cougars would never cut the margin back to single digits.
Butler reached a fourteen point lead three times the rest of the half before increasing it out to fifteen with 3:52 left.
Both teams shot over 45% in first half action with the distinctive difference coming at the free throw line where Butler connected on 15-of-19 while the Cougars made just 5-of-8 including missing three straight 1-and-1 opportunities in the final three minutes.
The second half didn't start much better for Barton as Butler scored the first six out of the locker room increasing the lead to nineteen. The margin blossomed to twenty-three a pair of times in the next three minutes until a Barton technical foul pushed it to twenty-five with 11:56 remaining.
Seven straight by the Cougars seemed to be turning the momentum but a second technical foul on a Barton player halted the spurt with Butler taking the next four points through the media timeout.
The Butler lead grew to twenty-five again twice, the last coming with 6:32 remaining, with the Cougars closing out the contest outscoring the Grizzlies 10-3 in the final three minutes.