Building a twenty point second half lead, the Barton Community College men's basketball team had to hold off a valiant Cloud County Community College rally as the Cougars sank free throws down the stretch for an 89-80 first round Region VI playoff victory.
The 3rd seeded Cougars advance to the quarterfinals with the victory, improving to 15-8 on the year while 14th seed Cloud County's season comes to an end at 6-17.
Next up is Wednesday's 7:30 p.m. hosting of 11th seeded Garden City Community College (9-12) as the Broncbusters pulled a first round upset at Butler Community College, knocking off the 6th seeded Grizzlies 79-69. The winner of the Barton-Garden City contest will then advance to Friday's semifinals against the victor of 10th seed Neosho County at 2nd seed Cowley College.
The gritty inside play of Desean Munson led four Cougars in double-digits, scoring 28 points on 11-of-17 shooting including 6-of-8 from the charity stripe while hauling down a team high 8 rebounds.
Jaheim Holden dished out eight of the Cougars assists, adding 17 points including a trio of three pointers. Shawn Warrior scored a career high 14 points, blocked three shots, and grabbed six rebounds with Justin Harmon adding 10 points and 7 rebounds with three steals. Asanti Price and Evans Kipruto each contributing 7 points with Kipruto pulling down five of his seven rebounds off the offensive glass including a thunderous first half put-back rim bender.
Zavian Smith led all scorers with 25 points to go along with a team high five assists. Travis Beetch's 2-of-3 from behind the arc and Ibrahim Drame each added 12 points with Dyelan Reed contributing 11 points on 3-of-7 three-point shooting. David Acosta flirted with the double-double with 10 rebounds and 8 points with a game high four shot rejections.
RECAP
The Cougars gained some breathing room coming out of the first half media timeout on a 6-0 spurt as Warrior slammed home Harmon's transition alley-oop pass with Kipruto getting his big time follow-up dunk cleaning up the offensive glass and Harmon's slash to the hole pushing the lead to 28-21.
Barton maintained a 7-10 point margin most of the remaining seven minutes of the half until a 6-2 stretch to close out the opening twenty minutes sent the Cougars to the locker room enjoying a 48-32 lead behind 58% shooting.
The Cougars lead grew to its largest of twenty with 16:23 following Munson and Price jumpers before Cloud County owned the next five minutes on a 13-2 stretch closing to within eleven.
With the lead still at eleven with six minutes to play, Cloud County chipped away at the deficit until stringing five straight to trail by one at 81-80 with 1:58 left.
Clutch free throws by Munson kept Barton out front to halt the momentum with the Cougar defense keeping the T-birds off the scoreboard the rest of the way. Holden and Harmon joined Munson for trips to the stripe in the remaining 80 seconds as the trio sank 6-of-8 free throws to preserve the victory.