The 25th ranked Barton Community College men's basketball team stayed unblemished on the season with a 77-65 win Saturday night over McCook Community College in the final game of the two-day eight-game Best Western/Cougar Booster Club Classic.
Barton trailed by two with 11:10 remaining in the contest but a 6-0 run flipped the script as the Cougars would never trail again, putting the game out of reach with a 10-2 stretch with four minutes left in the pull-away victory.
The Cougars conclude non-conference play at 6-0 while McCook's pair of weekend losses drops the Indians to 1-5 on the year. Barton opens up conference play on Wednesday hosting Garden City Community College in a 7:30 p.m. tip-off.
In the earlier matchup, 15th ranked Hutchinson trailed by twenty points with eight minutes to play and was down eleven with three minutes before unleashing a 14-0 run to spoil Clarendon's upset bid with a 97-95 victory. The Blue Dragons improve to 6-0 while Clarendon's weekend pair of losses leaves the Bulldogs at 3-3 on the year.
RECAP
A pair of McCook three-pointers doubled up the Cougars at 12-6 six minutes into the contest, holding the lead to the seven minute mark of first half action. Four straight from Evans Kipruto followed by a pair of Cougar Downing slashes to the cup put Barton up 25-21 with 5:03 to play, Barton's first lead since Hannes Saar's opening bucket. A six-pack of points put McCook back out in front and following De'Antray Hughes' 1-of-2 trip to the line tying it with 2:55 left, outscored Barton 6-2 in the final three minutes for a 34-30 halftime edge.
Consecutive Kipruto inside buckets got the game tied up four minutes into the final frame with Modibo Sanogo and Downing points following a McCook three pointer putting Barton back on top 47-46 at the 11:40 mark. Another Indian long range shot seesawed the lead back to the visiting squad but it would be the last of the night as Barton countered with a 6-0 run in never trailing again.
Barton broke further away with a 10-2 stretch, ignited by the inside play of Myles Thompson's six straight on tough inside jumpers and four points coming from Downing at the charity strip pushing the score out to 71-59 with two minutes remaining. McCook scored the next six over the next minute to close within six but the Cougars sank 6-of-8 from the line while holding the Indians scoreless the rest of the way for the victory.
STATS
Held to four points in the opening twenty minutes, Downing was a perfect 10-for-10 from the stripe in scoring nineteen second half points to lead all scorers with 23 points. The inside tandem of Kipruto and Sanogo contributed 10 points each while combining for 15 rebounds helping Barton to a slim one rebound advantage over McCook. Trey Bates III dished out game high honors with 5 assists and scoring 8 points as Hughes led with three steals and totaled 9 points and 5 rebounds. Thompson finished with 8 points and 6 rebounds in his 22 minutes of action.
DaMiene Boles Jr's 14 points led McCook with Julian Lual and Damien Perry adding 10 points each. Lual led the team with 8 rebounds as Perry distributed a team high 4 assists.