OVERLAND PARK— If the Barton Community College men’s soccer team is going to win a conference title, a win at Johnson County Tuesday was nearly a must.

Well, the conference title hopes are still alive.

The Cougars left Johnson with a 2-1 win and are still in the thick of the Jayhawk Conference race. Barton is now 3-1 in the Jayhawk and 8-1 overall.  Johnson fell to 0-2 and 3-4-1.

“It was a must win game for our men and they stepped up,” coach Aaron Avila said. “We didn’t finish our chances particularly well but the guys kept battling and earned the victory. It was a very good result for our men.”

The Cougars played from behind nearly the entire first half.  Johnson took a 1-0 lead seven minutes into the game and kept that lead through halftime.

The Cougars were able to even the score early in the second half when Sergio Ribeiro scored his first career goal as a Cougar. Ribeiro found the net seven minutes into the half on Jiro Barriga Tomaya’s fifth assist of the season.

The game stayed tied until just 16 minutes remained.

Barton took its first lead at that time when Renan Sousa struck again. Sousa scored his eighth goal in nine games on an unassisted shot.

It was his 26th point of the year.

The Cougars held that lead until the final buzzer for the win.

Barton’s next action will be a 7 p.m. kick in Dodge City Saturday. Dodge is winless in the Jayhawk at 0-3.