By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Carlos Adames didn’t get the knockout he and his handlers sought Saturday night.

The hard-hitting Dominican prospect did more than enough, though, to beat Alejandro Barrera in their 10-round super welterweight fight. The Dominican Republic’s Adames landed a lot of hard shots to the determined Mexican veteran’s head and body, and won a unanimous decision on the Vasiliy Lomachenko-Jorge Linares undercard at Madison Square Garden.

Each of the three judges – Frank Lombardi (97-93), Ron McNair (96-94) and John Poturaj (98-92) – scored the fight for Adames.

The 24-year-old Adames improved to 14-0. He went the distance for just the third time since making his pro debut in July 2015.

The 31-year-old Barrera (29-5, 18 KOs) has lost three of his last four fights.

Unbeaten IBF welterweight champ Errol Spence Jr. (23-0, 20 KOs) remains the only opponent to knock out Barrera. Spence stopped Barrera in the fifth round of a November 2015 bout in Dallas.

Adames pushed to knock out Barrera in the 10th round, but Barrera continued to take his hardest shots well enough to reach the final bell.

Barrera connected with a left-right combination just after midway point of the ninth round. An accidental clash of heads opened a cut beneath Barrera’s right eye a few seconds before the ninth round ended.

Barrera backed Adames into the ropes late in the eighth round, but Adames mostly slipped his punches. When Barrera did land, those shots didn’t appear to affect Adames.

Adams landed consistently to Barrera’s head and body throughout the seventh round. Barrera hammered Adames with a clean left hook late in the seventh, but Adames shook his head and kept coming forward.

Adames boxed much of the sixth round out of a southpaw stance. He didn’t have as much success fighting that way as he experienced during the fifth round, when he boxed right-handed.

Adames rocked Barrera with a right hand when there were just under 20 seconds to go in the fifth round. He connected with another right hand that moved Barrera backward before that round ended.

Adames snapped back Barrera’s head with a straight right hand about 50 seconds into the fourth round. Adames blasted Barrera with a left hook and followed up with an overhand right a little more than a minute later.

They traded power punches just before the bell sounded to end the fourth round.

Barrera bravely traded with Adames around the midway point of the third round. He had some success with his lefts to the body later in the third, but also took several right hands from Adames.

Barrera began letting his hands go early in the second round. That caused Adames to cover up briefly, but his hard right hand with about 30 seconds to go in the second round got Barrera’s attention.

Adames followed up by attacking Barrera’s body and landed a flush left hook to the head with approximately 10 seconds to go in the second round.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.