Jayhawk Conference victories on the road are hard to come by but the Barton Community College men’s basketball team have captured two straight by dominating second half action. Closing out Wednesday’s victory on a 15-0 run, the Cougars were almost equally impressive controlling the final ten minutes Saturday in El Dorado picking up a big 67-56 win at Butler Community College. Snapping a modest two-game slide at the Power Plant, Barton scored forty-four second half points breaking a first half tie in sending Butler to its first home defeat busting up the twenty-six home game win streak. Barton’s two wins to begin conference play improves the Cougars to 10-3 on the season while Butler’s nine-game win streak is snapped dropping to 9-4 and 1-1 in the Jayhawk. Barton will have a week from competition until hosting Cowley College on Saturday in a 3:30 p.m. tip at the Barton Gym.
Just like in the preceding women’s game, Barton jumped out to an early lead scoring nine of the first eleven. The Cougars built the lead back out to seven three more times only to have the Grizzlies respond including a 8-1 run closing first half action leaving the teams tied at 23 heading to the locker room.
Buckets by Derek Dorn and Dequandre Dentmond got Barton off to a good second half start as the Grizzlies were only able to draw within two on a few occasions before the Cougars started to get cranked up.
A balanced Cougar attack took the lead out to nine with thirteen minutes to play but the Grizzlies wouldn’t go away launching a 8-2 run to climb back to 45-40 going into the 9:50 media timeout.
Needing some separation, Anthony Smith picked a great time to knock down his first three-pointer of the year burying a trey right before the shot clock ran out despite a Butler defender in his face giving Barton a huge emotional lift and eleven point lead with seven minutes to play.
Not willing to relinquish its home court streak, the Grizzlies clawed its way back in the game with a 6-0 run drawing to within 55-51 with 2:39 on the clock. Two Dorn free throws would end the run then following a 1-of-2 trip at the Grizzly free throw line, the Cougars put the game away scoring the next seven points for a twelve point lead for the final forty seconds.
Butler would get a couple of free throws in the waning seconds but an Ezekiel Charles transition bucket and Dorn free throw capped the afternoon’s eleven point victory.
Four Cougars reached double-digit scoring led by the thirteen points each coming from Keith Mack and Smith. Dorn and Dentmond each finished with twelve with Dorn dishing out a team high three assists and Dentmond recording his third double-double performance as the reigning Co-Conference Player of the Week hauled down eleven rebounds.
Held to only 28.6% shooting from the floor, Butler had a balanced scoring attack with no players reaching double figures but three reaching the eight point mark. Darrell Jacob was a monster on the boards grabbing half of his game high fourteen rebounds on the offensive glass joining two other with seven points.
