If a score is any indication of progress, the Barton Community College Wrestling team has shown a lot of progress in two months as the Cougars shut out Northwest Kansas Technical College in the first match of Tuesday night’s Cougar Dual at the Barton Gym. Having fell to the Mavericks 19-18 back on November 14 in Goodland, the Cougars swept all weight classes wrestled to chalk up a 36-0 victory. Twenty minutes after their opening shutout win, the Cougars had its work cut out for them with fellow conference foe Pratt Community College. In the first ever meeting of the two teams, the match count finished at four apiece with the Cougars outscoring Pratt by six but two forfeits proved to be too much as Barton dropped the 25-19 match. The dual split leaves Barton at 5-4 on the season in duals with the Cougars outscoring opponents 254-155. Barton will next head to Wichita for Sunday’s Kansas Cup hosted by Newman University.
The night opened at the 165 weight class and Sean Taborsky got the Cougars off big start racking up a 16-0 technical fall over Corey Coombs. Christian Strother followed at the 174 with a closer match but kept enough distance picking up a 7-2 decision over Brice Mason.
Registering Barton’s second technical fall in three matches, Tim Johnson piled up a big point night putting away Aaron Hudson 18-2 in the 184. Jonathan Bowen was also impressive in the 197 registering a 10-2 major decision over Turah Reed giving Barton seventeen point lead.
Following Justin Scarbro‘s forfeit victory in the 285, the 125 class had both open slots jumping the action to the 133. Caysen Smith kept the domination rolling shutting out Lucas Gardner 6-0.
Perhaps the most entertaining match of the night came in the 141 weight as Jaden McRoberts outscored Levi Maes 14-10. Maes, who was wrestling up a couple of weight classes, dug out from a deep hole in the match to make a late charge but McRoberts countered and kept the distance in securing the win.
Coming down to the final two matches of the dual, Zach Vesta set up the potential Cougar shut out chalking up the second major decision of the night running away from Dominique Evans in the 149 class 14-2. With the pressure of keeping the slate clean, hometown product Kade Sander was in for the battle of the night holding off Victor Haro in a hard fought 2-0 decision.
The shutout victory was the second of the season for the young Cougars as Head Coach Mike Bammes’ squad recorded its first shutout 50-0 over Colby Community College back on November 14 in Goodland.
