Great Bend, KS- The T-Bird men dropped a 66-57 contest at Barton Community College on Wednesday night.

Aamahne Santos and Devonte Dixon got hot out of the halftime break nailing four straight shots, three of them from deep, to cut the Cougar lead to two at 38-36. The league's top defense wouldn't allow the T-Birds to get any closer as they held off Cloud County and won by nine.

All too often this year the T-Birds have fallen behind early. However, after falling behind 22-11 early the T-Birds stormed back. Rashun Allen and Duby Maduegbunam hit back to back threes and with 2:54 before half Cloud had cut the lead to four at 27-23. Cloud would trail 33-25 at half. 

Santos and Dixon made things interesting early in the second half but the T-Birds cooled off and were unable to swing the momentum down the stretch. Dejuan Sherman came off the bench and scored the final eight points for Cloud to keep things interesting. 

Despite scoring just 57 points, the T-Birds shot 45.1% from the field and connected on 9 of 23 from deep for 39.1% on the night. 

The big difference was at the free throw line. Cloud shot just five free throws on the night compared to 26 for Barton. 

Santos had 13 points in the loss to lead Cloud. Sherman had eight of his 10 points in the final four minutes of the game.

Saturday night will be homecoming night in Concordia as Cloud hosts Garden City in Arley Bryant Gymnasium. The women will tip at 6pm and the men will follow.