16th ranked Cougars hold off Colby setting up big final week of regular season play #GoBarton
16th ranked Cougars hold off Colby setting up big final week of regular season play.
The 16th ranked Barton Community College men's basketball team held the lead for the final thirty-two minutes Wednesday night in holding off Colby Community College 78-74.
Barton improves to 16-6 in the KJCCC and 22-6 on the season with Colby dropping to 11-13 in league and 16-13 overall.
Next up is a pair of trips to southeast Kansas to wind up the regular season beginning Saturday in a 4:00 p.m. at Independence Community College. Should the Cougars win, next Wednesday's travel to 18th ranked Coffeyville Community College could set up a second seed showdown for the upcoming playoffs with possible national tournament at-large bid implications as well.
Barton unleashed a 13-2 second half stretch to grow its advantage to as many as 17 points with 11:25 remaining but the Trojans answered with its own 14-2 run making the contest interesting for the final six minutes.
Successful trips to the free throw line by Keandre Kindell and Aris Rodriguez pushed the gap back to nine with Colby responding by continuing to chip away cutting the deficit to just three.
Brent Moss' 7th offensive rebound and putback made it a two-possession lead with 36 seconds left only to have a Trojan three-pointer drawing back to within two points. Rodriguez' pair of charity tosses with 9 seconds remaining provided the final margin seal the Cougars' 10th straight win of the series.
Rodriguez had one of his better all-around performances of the year by recording a career high 7 steals and 6 rebounds towards an 18-point outing.
Eltramon Smith, Jr. led all players with a career high 20 points as the league's best three-point shooter drained 3-of-4 behind the arc, hauling down 9 rebounds in just missing his first career double-double for the second time of the year.
Kindell sparked the guard play with 16 points and a game high 6 assists with Moss adding a 9-point, 9-rebound stat line.
Eternity Eguagie's 18 points and Raphael Nagau-Trouar's 18 points with 9 rebounds led Colby with Gaius Meoowuru M'Ellia contributing 13 points and 7 rebounds.
