Cougars drop 3 of 4 in West play on the road during weekend
The Barton County Community College baseball team probably saw any hopes of earning the best record in the Jayhawk West come to an end over the weekend, dropping 3 of 4 games on the road in West play. Barton split games at Cloud County on Saturday then fell twice to Seward County on Sunday. Barton lost the opener at Cloud, 3-0 before winning 6-3 in the 2nd contest. Barton fell 6-3 and 4-1 to the Saints Sunday afternoon. Barton is now 15-11 in the West with 6 games to play. The Cougars are 29-21 overall. Seward leads the West with a 20-8 mark while Butler is close behind at 18-8. Barton will travel to Hutchinson Wednesday to end the season with home games against Pratt and Cloud over the weekend at Lawson-Biggs Field.
Highlights
Barton faced the top pitcher on the Cloud staff in the opener in Jacob Diekman. Despite being at the bottom of the West, Diekman has been impressive this season for the Thunderbirds and is headed to the University of Nebraska. Diekman won a pitching duel with Barton's Ryan Sheldon in the opener as the two teams combined for just 5 hits in the game. Barton collected 3 hits, but could never manage to string them together. Cloud had just 2 hits off Sheldon but scored a pair of unearned runs to get the win. The only earned run Sheldon gave up was a solo homer in the 5th.
In the 2nd game, Barton scored 3 times in the 1st and once in the 2nd to take an early 4-0 lead. Tyler Metcalf hit a 2-run homer in the 1st and Kenny Burkhead added a solo shot for a 3-0 lead. David Wilson added a 2-run homer in the 5th as he continued to swing a hot bat, giving Barton a 6-0 lead. Starter Jeff Edlefsen finally ran into trouble in the 6th but Erik Anderson came in to save the game for Edlefsen, striking out 4 of the 6 batters he faced to pick up his 7th save of the year.
Sunday afternoon, Seward scored 2 times in each of the 1st 3 innings to grab a 6-0 lead on Barton and force the Cougars to play catch-up. Barton made things interesting in the 6th inning, loading the bases up with 1 out. Marc Albers then singled in Brandon Wells and Holt walked to score Tyler Rzepka to make it 6-2 with the bases loaded and still just 1out. But a double play ended the inning and Barton's best shot a comeback win. Rzepka singled in Burkhead in the 7th with 2 outs but that would be the end of the Barton rally.
The Cougars took a 1-0 lead in the 3rd inning of the nightcap as Wilson doubled in Metcalf with 2 outs. That would be it for the Barton scoring. Seward put up 2 runs in each the 4th and 5th innings to come away with the 4-1 win.
Stats
Stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports
Next
April 25 – at Hutchinson, 3 pm (Jayhawk West doubleheader at Hobart-Detter Field)