Hot start cools off as Barton softball drops twin bill at Hutchinson #GoBarton

Scoring seven runs in the first two innings got the Barton Community College softball team off to a good start Saturday at Hutchinson Community College but the Cougars turned cold as the weather with the Blue Dragons scoring twenty-eight unanswered runs in sweeping the doubleheader 15-7 and 15-0.

The losses slide Barton to 11-5 and 14-10 overall while Hutchinson sits atop the standings at 14-2 and 25-7 overall. The Cougars will look to get back on track Wednesday to begin the second half of the league slate by welcoming Dodge City Community College for a 1:00 p.m. first pitch at Cougar Field.

Laci Dryden led Barton's nine opening game hits with a 3-for-3 performance accounting for Barton's first run on Allyson McDougal's two-out single.

Barton tacked on two more in the next at-bat as Chloe Enslinger's launch over the left field fence chalked up her team leading third round-tripper of the season.

The Blue Dragons rallied back in the home half with a two-out hit and double in cutting the deficit to 3-2.

Barton fired back in the second frame with five runs getting hits from Mikaila Herring, Lani Dryden, Laci Dryden, and Leslie Ramos in producing two runs. Ground outs from Aly Lawrence and McDougal pushed across two more building the lead to 7-2.

Hutchinson capitalized on a leadoff walk followed by the first of three Barton errors in the game, getting the first of four runs across on a sacrifice fly before striking again with two-outs on three consecutive singles and another error shrinking the deficit to one.

From there it was all Hutchinson as Barton managed just two hits and two walks for the rest of the game while the Blue Dragons plated a pair of runs in the fourth, one in the fifth, and a game clinching six dish crossers in the sixth.

Collecting the nine hits in the opener the Cougars mustered just two in the backend of the doubleheader sending Lawrence and Elina Bartlett to the losses in the circle as each falls to 4-2 on the year.