GREAT BEND, Kan. – After trailing by as many as 20 with 16:43 left in the game, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team would get within a single-point against Barton Community College in the final 1:58 of the game before going scoreless the rest of the way to fall by a score of 89-80 in the opening round of the NJCAA Region VI Men's Basketball Tournament at the Kirkman Center in Great Bend, Kansas on Monday, April 5th.

Suffering their second defeat of the season against Barton, Cloud County ends their 2020-21 campaign with a 6-17 mark while the Cougars will advance to Wednesday's Region VI Tournament quarterfinal round against Garden City who upset Butler on Monday night in El Dorado.

Creating separation on the scoreboard would be anything but easy for either team in the opening eight-plus minutes of the contest as things would start out competitive with the largest lead coming at 13-7 T-Birds with 15:40 left in the opening half. A 5-1 spurt from Barton would allow the Cougars to close within a pair at 14-12 as BCC would reclaim the lead at 16-14 with just under 13 minutes left in the first period. The Cougar lead would bounce between two and five for the next five-plus minutes of action as Cloud County would keep things close before an 11-2 Barton run would push the deficit to double-digits at 33-23. CCCC would be unable to keep up with the Cougars down the stretch of the opening period as offensive struggles would find their way to the T-Birds to allow BCC to grab a 48-32 lead at the intermission break.

Scoring six of the first eight points of the second half, Barton would manage to take their largest lead of the game at 54-36 with 15:54 remaining as the game would look to be on the verge of getting out of hand. A big response from Cloud County however would see the T-Birds go on a 13-2 run as sophomore Zavien Smith would begin to push CCCC towards a comeback to get the deficit back down to single-digits at 56-47 with 12:29 remaining. Cloud County would get as close as six to close out their run towards the midway point of the second half as the Cougars would begin to settle back in and get their lead back to 11 at 66-55 with just under nine minutes left.

Becoming the aggressors and getting to the free-throw line would be to the benefit of Cloud County as the T-Birds would once again start to chip away at the BCC lead to get within four at 71-67 with 5:35 remaining. Six straight points by Barton would allow the Cougars to go back up 10 yet again as the Cougars would appear poised to pull away for good but CCCC would have one final push down the stretch.

Cloud County's response would see the T-Birds go on a 13-4 run with Smith connecting on a pair of massive triples while also hitting on a pair of free throws to get CCCC within a single-point at 81-80 with 1:58 remaining. Having mounted the comeback would prove to be all that CCCC would have in the tank however as Barton would hold the T-Birds scoreless the rest of the way while going eight-for-10 at the free-throw line in the final two minutes to survive and advance against a Cloud County squad that refused to go down without a fight.

Cloud County would hold a 24-11 advantage in bench points and outscore Barton 16-14 in points off turnovers but face a massive 48-28 deficit in points in the paint and 16-8 deficit in fast break points. For the game, CCCC would shoot 41.2 percent (28-of-68) from the field and go 10-for-25 (40.0 percent) from beyond the arc while also connecting on 77.8 percent (14-of-18) of their free-throw attempts. The Cougars would fare slightly better from the floor (35-of-73, 47.9 percent) despite hitting on just five-of-21 (23.8 percent) from three.

Scoring a team-high 25 points would be Smith who would play a game-high 39 minutes while adding five rebounds and five assists. Both Travis Beetch and Ibrahim Drame would add 12 points off the bench while Dyelan Reed would score 11 points and record four steals.