The No. 12 Barton Community College men’s soccer team is enjoying success and recognition as a team.
Moreover, their successful on the individual level as a third different player was named for the KJCCC Verizon Wireless Player of the Week award released recently.
Hector Mata, a freshman from Liberal, is the latest to receive the honor, joining teammates Sam McCrillis and Mauricio Campos.  
Despite only playing one of the Cougars’ two games over the weekend, Mata made his presence felt on Sunday by entering the Barton record books as he was involved in five of the Cougars’s even goals in the 7-1 victory at Independence.
The 6-foot-1 midfielder scored three goals and had two assists to established himself in the annals, tying for fifth place for both single-game goals and scoring.
Mata scored two of his three goals in the first half, which helped Barton get out to a 3-0 halftime advantage.  
Forty-eight seconds into the second half, Mata set up teammate Vinicius Braga for a goal and then was on the receiving end from Braga to get his third goal just 22 seconds later.  
Mata concluded his scoring by dishing out an assist two minutes later, to Gonzalo Gelso, as the Cougars had a 6-0 lead with 41 minutes to play and thus put any hope of an Independence upset victory to rest as Barton won, 7-1.
The 8-1-1 Cougars will travel to Tonkawa, Okla., today for a 4 o’clock non-conference game against Northern Oklahoma College-Tonkawa.
 Barton returns to conference action Saturday for a key conference match with Cowley College.  Game time is 8:00 p.m. at Great Bend High School’s Memorial Stadium.