Cougars win pair of salvage split of opening West series
The Barton Community College baseball team won a pair of games Monday to salvage a split in the opening series of Jayhawk West action. Barton won 9-4 and 6-2 Monday after dropping a pair of 8-6 decisions Sunday. The Cougars are 2-2 in West play and 8-8 overall on the season. Dodge City, also 2-2 in the West, is 5-8 overall this year. The Cougars led every game going into the final inning but gave up that lead twice on Sunday. Barton will be on the road next weekend for a 4-game series at Garden City.

Highlights
Barton held the lead for a pair of games Monday, riding a complete-game effort from Michael Cotter in the opener. Cotter gave up 6 hits and 4 runs – 2 of them unearned. He struck out 6 and walked 1. Kent Urban had a pair of hits and drove in 3 in the win. Austin Messerli also drove in 3 in the win. Barton scored 5 times in the 4th on just 1 hit to take control of the game. That hit was a 3-run homer by Messerli that scored Kent Urban and Blaine Clark.  Control issues haunted the Dodge pitching staff in the inning with 5 walks and 2 hit batsmen.

The Cougars received another solid pitching effort in the nightcap as Landon Fall improved to 2-1 with 5 1/3 innings of 7 strike out 2-run baseball. Fall scattered 8 hits in that time and lowered his ERA to 2.04 with just 1 earned run allowed. That is 2nd on the team to Matt Robertson at 1.80. Fall joins Robertson as a 2-game winner early in the season. Barton led 1-0 before scoring 4 times in the bottom of the 5th. Lance Woltemath delivered the big hit in the inning with 2-run triple to drive in the 1st 2 runs of the inning. He later scored on a Brandon Hoefler single. Dustin Phelps followed with the 2nd triple of the inning to score Hoefler and give the Cougars a 5-0 lead. Dodge would get a pair of runs in the top of the 6th before Drew Smith got the Cougars out of the inning in relief and picked up his 2nd save of the season.

The Cougars gave up 4 runs twice in the top of the 7th Sunday that prevented them from earning a sweep to start conference play. Barton led 6-4 in the opener Sunday before Dodge City scored 4 run – 3 unearned – in the top half of the final inning. The final 2 tie-breaking runs scored with 2 outs in the inning. David Allbritton continued his big bat with 3 hits and an RBI to pace Barton. Kensley Dukes drove in a pair for the Cougars and Clark scored twice.

In the nightcap, Barton led 5-4 heading into the final inning before surrendering 4 unearned runs in the 8-6 defeat. This time the Conquistadors scored 3 times with 2 outs. Barton added a run in its final at bat but could muster no more. Phelps was the only Cougar to collect 2 hits in the game finishing 2-for-3 with a run scored.

Stats
Stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
March 7-8 – at Garden 1 pm (Jayhawk West 4-game series at Garden City)