It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was went down the final few minutes. Twice.
But in the end, the Barton men’s soccer team lived to play another day in the Region VI Tournament.
The Cougars were looking good with a 2-two goal late in the contest against Cowley in the opening round of the Region VI post-season at the Barton Soccer Complex Thursday afternoon.
But Cowley made things interesting before Barton survived with a 5-4 win.
Cowley cut that 2-goal Barton lead to a single goal with four minutes to play. Then with just 47 second between Barton the next round, the referee added two more minutes to the clock.
But in the end, the Cougars survived those two minutes and kept their season alive.
That sets up a match with the winner of the Neosho County and Northwest Tech game. That game finished late Thursday in Chanute. If Neosho won, the contest will be in Chanute Sunday. If Northwest Tech wins, the game will at the Barton Soccer Copmlex.
Cowley took an early lead in the contest, scoring just seven minutes in. From there the Cougars, with a 30 mph wind at their back, controlled the first half.
Ezra Armstrong even the match at 1-all just four minutes later. Hiroo Kimura gave Barton a lead it would not relinquish 30 minutes into the game and Gabriel De Almeida made it 3-1 with eight minutes left in the first half.
Cowley made things interesting with that wind at its back to start the second half, scoring three minutes to the half to make it 3-2.
But the Cougars grabbed control of the contest not too much later. In fact, a one minutes stretch turned out to be the biggest one minute stretch of the season to date for Barton.
Sora Wakabayashi assisted on a pair of goals during that one minute to put Barton in command.
First the freshman found Toranosuke Abe for a 4-2 lead 11 minutes into the second half. Then he found Benjamin Zamora one minute for a 5-2 advantage..
But Cowley wouldn’t go away. Hawker scored a second goal with 21 minutes left in the game then Andrija Sreckovic made it 5-4 with 3:54 left. That was 3:54 plus what turned out to be two more minutes.
From there the Cougars survived a barrage of Cowley shot to the buzzer.

Barton 5, Cowley 4
Cowley 1 3 – 4
Barton 3 2 – 5

SCORING SUMMARY
Cowley – Pellegrino Neto, 7:03
Barton – Ezra Armstrong, 10:54
Barton – Hiroo Kimura, 30:14
Barton – Gabriel De Almeida (Armstrong), 37:05
Cowley – Jake Hawker, 47:57
Barton – Toranosuke Abe (Sora Wakabayashi), 56:22
Barton – Benjamin Zamora (Wakabayashi), 57:04
Cowley – Hawker, 69:21
Cowley – Andrija Sreckovic, (86:06)