The Barton Community College men’s soccer team made a brief stop at home Thursday. The Cougars held their home opener – a 5-1 win over the Sterling College JV before taking back to the road this weekend.

The home match will be Barton’s only home date through its first four games.

Barton improved to 2-0 with the win and will be back on the road this weekend for action Saturday and Sunday.

“The guys played pretty well for this point in the season,” coach Aaron Avila said. “We will have to sharpen up our finishing and overall play in the final third of the field.”

In the win Thursday, the Cougars dominated the attack but couldn’t snag a lead in the contest until halftime was almost upon them. Playing with a big wind at its back on the opening 45 minutes, Barton had trouble keeping the ball down sending several shots over the net.

That coupled with some good goal keeping by Taylor Ruth kept the game scoreless until Kato Endo rebounded a crossbar miss by Renan Sousa with 3:15 left in the half for a 1-0 lead.

The Cougars added another goal prior to the half as Sousa set up Lucan Alves with 2:13 to play. Alves put the shot in net and Barton took a 2-0 lead to intermission. Barton got off 15 shots in the opening half.

Sterling made things interesting in the second half when Jonathan Hernandez scored on a penalty kick with 29:18 left to make it a 2-1 contest.

Jemal Bechri came in for Sterling to play keeper in the second half and was just as solid as Ruth most of the way. He kept Barton in check until the final 12 minutes of the game.

Barton’s Uriel Heredia gave the Cougars some breathing room with a goal at the 12:15 mark. Heredia took a thru ball from Emmanuel Pablano to make it a 3-1 game.

Chris Docherty made it 4-1 with 9:59 left off an assist from Jiro Barriga Toyama. The Cougars, like the opening half, closed the second half strong as Kaike Guerra added a late goal. Guerra scored in the box on a thru ball from Heredia with 1:53 left to finish off the 5-1 win.

“Defensively, I was pleased with the team’s work rate and their ability to win the back quickly,” coach Avila said.

Barton will head to Oklahoma for a pair of games this weekend against two more JV teams. The Cougars will be in Bartlesville Saturday to battle Oklahoma Wesleyan then head three hours down I-44 to Bethany to play Southwest Christian University at 2 p.m. Sunday.

The Cougars will return home for a big test Wednesday when Northern Oklahoma-Tonkawa visits the Barton pitch for a 4 p.m. kick off.