WILSON, NC – The Barton College men’s basketball team made its 2008-09 home debut in the “Dog House” a memorable one on Wednesday night.

The Bulldogs, 3-3 overall, opened Conference Carolinas play with a rousing 98-58 win over Coker College in front of 855 fans. Coker slipped to 3-5 overall and 0-2 in league action. Barton will host Erskine on Saturday on “Community Night,” when admission will be free in appreciation of the public’s support of Bulldog athletics. Coker is off until Dec. 15th, when it will entertain Florida Christian at 7 p.m.

The outcome was never in doubt as Barton jumped out to a 10-2 lead and was up 28 points, 49-21, by halftime. The Bulldogs controlled the boards 54-36 and hit 48 percent of their shots (36-of-75) while clamping down defensively and limiting the Cobras to just 36.7 percent (22-of-60).

The game was delayed for some 25 minutes near the end of the first half when Coker’s Stevie Evans went down with an injury which required the services of EMS. He was able to move all of his limbs as he left to a standing ovation.

Junior Barton 6-4 forward L.J. Dunn tallied 18 points and seven boards, senior 6-6 post David King canned 13 points and pulled six boards, sophomore Greg Mammel scored 11 and senior Errol Frails finished with 10 points.

Coker, who went 0-for-7 from 3-point range in the first half, got 18 points from Josh Poston, 11 from J.C. Hafner and 10 by Lukas Varga. The Cobras were hampered by 20 turnovers.