The offense was far from hitting on all cylinders. But it didn’t need to. Thanks to another strong defensive effort the Barton men’s soccer team won its third straight in the final home regular season game of the year.
Barton blanked Coffeyville by a 2-0 score Saturday at the Cougar Soccer Complex. The win improved Barton to 13-2 on the season and secured at least the No. 3 seed in the Region VI tournament starting later this week. The Cougars are 7-2 in the Jayhawk Conference. Coffeyville is 1-8-1 in the conference and 5-11-1 overall.
“We defended well and were able to get another shutout,” Barton Coach Aaron Avila said. “Due to some injuries we are having to adjust our attack and move some players around.
“I hope to keep improving in order to play at a higher level going into the playoffs.”
Seeding and pairing for the Region VI tournament will be finalized Tuesday after the final regular season games are completed. Barton has secured a home playoff contest more than likely to take place Thursday.
The Cougars and Red Ravens battled to a scoreless intermission after the first 45 minutes of play.
In the second half the Red Ravens began to fall apart. Gabriel Trujillo picked up a pair of yellow cards within an 8-minute span putting Coffeyville one man down just more than five minutes into the second half.
When Jonathan Galvan picked up a yellow card with 31 minutes to play the Red Ravens played two men down the rest of the way. Galvan had been yellow carded in the first half as well.
It took a while but Barton finally made the Red Ravens pay.
Renan Sousa put the Cougars on the board with just less than 13 minutes to play in the game when he took a pass from Luiz Pereira and put it in the net for his 14th goal of the season.
Pereira scored in the final two minutes of the game to secure the win. Pereira scored off Vinicius Monteiro’s first career assist.
The Barton defense was solid once again. The Cougars allowed Coffeyville just five shots the entire contest – only two of which were on goal. In the previous outing, Barton allowed Maple Woods (Mo) just three shots.
Barton got off 22 shots and put 11 of those on goal but couldn’t break through until Sousa’s goal.
The Cougars will get their draw Tuesday with possible opening rounds opponents being KCK, Cowley, or Johnson.