BY MACK McCLURE
The Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Western Division men’s basketball race is a grind, a rotisserie of teams in the wild and wacky West poised to knock each other off the perch.
Barton heads to El Dorado on Saturday to take on Butler, fresh off an 82-73 victory over NJCAA No. 15-ranked Hutchinson on Thursday night.
Tipoff for Saturday’s game is 7:30 p.m., following the women’s game at 5:30.
Seward County is in first place in the West with a 10-2 mark, and then it gets interesting. Cloud County is 6-4, Garden is 6-5 and Hutch and Barton are 6-6 — all four very much alive. The beauty of it for Hutch and Barton is that they have waged one more conference war than the aforementioned teams thus far with the stretch run of the season under way.
Butler is 5-6, but is poised to jump back into the battle for second place.
The Cougars (18-8 overall), snapped a three-game losing streak in convincing fashion on Thursday night, toppling Garden City 70-66 at home to put themselves back in the thick of things in the conference race.
Barton relentlessly attacked the basket against Garden City, leading the entire first half and taking a 36-31 edge into halftime. The Cougars stood firm after halftime, made some big plays late and held on for the win as they survived a barrage of 3-pointers by the Broncbusters, who dialed up 11 of 29 from long distance on the night.
The catalyst in this one was Cougars point guard Storm Sanders, who buried 4 of 6 3-pointers, finished 5-for-7 from the field and also sank all four of his free throws for 18 points, matching freshman power forward Dwayne Brunson to lead BCC in scoring. The freshman southpaw from Canton, Ohio, also dealt out a team-high six assists.
With the Cougars leading 63-62 in the late going Sanders hit a crucial 3-pointer with 1:28 left in regulation to make it 66-62.
Adam Young hit a pair of free throws with 29.7 seconds left and Colin Beatty sank two more with eight seconds left to salt the game away for the Cougars.
