It was a night to remember for Kenny Enoch. A night that put him in the record books.
It seemed like the sophomore guard for the Barton Community College men’s basketball couldn’t miss. Enoch buried 9-of-14 3-pointers on his way to a career-high 38 points in leading the Cougars to a win in the regular season finale, 78-69, over Cloud County.
The win kept Barton alone in second place in the Jayhawk West finishing with a 12-4 mark. Butler won the conference at 14-2 while Hutchinson was third at 11-5. Cloud finished tied for the last spot with Colby at 3-13.
That pits the Cougars (24-6) and Thunderbirds (16-14) against each other again Saturday to open Region VI playoff action.
“Kenny had it going tonight,” Barton Coach Craig Fletchall said. “We hadn’t been shooting the three very well the past couple of games and he changed that for us. It was a good accomplishment for him to get his name in the record books.”
The nine 3’s for Enoch tied a school record for Barton – matching the efforts of Gordon Scott and Dennan Murrow. Scott was the first to do it back in 1998 against Garden City then Murrow matched it in 2010 against Colby.
The Cougars needed almost every one of them as they could not shake the pesky Thunderbirds – a team that beat them earlier this season.
Barton trailed nearly the entire first half. The Cougars finished on a 9-2 run to lead 35-32 at intermission.
Cloud re-established itself as the leader again to start the second until a 7-minute stretch keyed by Enoch changed the game.
Cloud led 43-40 when Enoch tied the game on his fifth trey of the game with 15:18 to play from the deep right corner. The next trip down the Tyron Acuff’s layup off a nice pass from Christian Smith gave Barton the lead. They would not trail again.
Enoch made it 48-43 on the ensuing trip with a 3-pointer in front of the student section after Ahmad Walker penetrated the lane on a fast break and found a wide open Enoch.
Walker capped a 12-0 run with a contested layup with 12:44 to play for a 52-43 lead.
After a very brief trip to the bench, Enoch returned and knocked down his seventh trey, this time from near the top of the key with 10:30 left. Khalil Gracey followed with a trey of his own and Barton’s lead was double figures, 58-47.
Enoch finished off a 24-6 run with four more points – thanks in part to two technical free throws after Cloud’s Trevor Singleton was whistled for hanging on the rim follow a dunk. When the run was over Enoch had scored 13 of those points and Barton had a 64-49 lead with 8:16 to play.
Enoch came up big again later the contest ending a 10-0 Cloud run with his eighth 3-pointer, this time from deep in the left corner. That gave Barton a 67-59 lead with 3:29 to play.
He put his name in the record books along with Scott and Murrow when Walker stole a Cloud inbounds pass and found a wide-open Enoch in front of the Barton bench with 16 seconds left in the game.
Walker had a monster night as well for the Cougars. The 6-4 sophomore scored 14 points and grabbed a career-high 15 rebounds. It was his 10th double-double of the season. Tyron Hamby added 10 points and a game-high four assists.
Cloud was led by Devon Thomas with 16 and Ridell Cammidge with 14.
The third meeting of the season between the two will be the most important as Cloud visits the Barton Gym Saturday for a 7:30 tip. Admission to the game is free.The winner gets the Dodge City-Cowley winner in the quarterfinals March 5 at Koch Arena in Wichita.
“We need to do it again Saturday,” Coach Fletchall said. “It seems like we haven’t had a lot of breaks the past couple of years in who we match up with in the playoffs and we sure aren’t getting one this year.
“Cloud is a good team. They have already beat us once this year so we are going to have to play very well to move on.”