The Barton Community College baseball team bounced back from a 5-3 Sunday loss at Carl Albert State College to sweep the Vikings on Monday 3-0 and 11-3.
Capturing the three game series in Poteau, Oklahoma, Barton improves to 7-2 on the year with a week off from competition before traveling to McPherson next Monday for a 4:00 p.m. nine inning contest against the junior varsity squad of McPherson College.
Carl Albert opened the series with solo runs on the board in the first two innings then gave Barton a little help in the third as two errors extended the inning after Andrew Stewart's two-out hit leading to Charlie Peyla's two RBI single to tie it up.
The Cougars took the lead in the following inning as Chandler Bloomer connected on the freshman's first collegiate home run in driving a 2-1 pitch over the left field wall.
Starting pitcher Jacob Ensz took the loss as the Vikings answered in the home half drawing a two-out walk before putting a 1-0 pitch on the other side of right field fence for the two-run shot. Carl Albert tacked on another in the fifth by loading the bases on reliever Clay Wesbrooks and getting the big two-out RBI single.
Held to just four hits in Sunday's nine inning loss, the Cougars pounded out twenty-five hits during Monday's pair of seven inning games.
Tweaking the lineup for the twin bill, the top five in the order produced seven of the Cougars' eight hits in the 3-0 shutout.
Nolan Riley and Noah Geekie led with two hits each with Riley's first inning RBI double giving the Cougars the early edge with Geekie's run producing single pushing across the first of two insurance runs in the top of the seventh. Peyla, would accounted for five hits and three RBIs in the three games, followed Geekie with a sac fly for the final run.
Jake Skala worked the first six innings scattering four hits and striking out three but ran into trouble in the seventh with a leadoff double and single. Turning the job over to Tanner Howe, the sophomore closed it out with three fly outs to earn his second save of the season while preserving Skala's first collegiate victory.
Barton put up a couple of big innings in the series clincher with four in the second and five in the seventh to put the game away.
Stewart extended his hit streak to five games going 4-of-4, driving in four of the Cougars' eleven runs, with the final three clearing the bases with a seventh inning double to cap the five run frame.
Casey Wulfkuhle went 3-for-7 out of the leadoff spot on Monday, driving in two runs in the series clincher on a second inning two-out single before delivering a fourth inning RBI triple for the sophomore's collegiate first three-bagger.
As the top five did most of the damage in Monday's first game, the lower half did its part as each drove in a run with Tyler Bandiera and Brett Erickson collecting three and two hits each. Bandiera's first hit came on a second inning double to plate Peyla for the first run of the game with his final hit loading up the bases in the five run seventh with Erickson's second hit delivering the second run acorss the plate.
Joe Richter picked up the freshman's first win of the year with 3.3 innings pitched in giving up three hits and striking out one in relieving Easton Young's first 2.1 innings and giving way to Howe for the final frame.
Stewart led the three game series batting .545 out of the two hole collecting six hits and driving in four runs.