The recent offensive woes lingered in Jayhawk West play for the Barton Community College baseball team Thursday afternoon dropping a pair to Cloud County Community College at Lee Doyen Field.
Managing two-runs over 16-innings, the Cougar bats were held at bay in the opener with just five hits falling 7-0. Cesar Gomez and Jaron Cotton produced the lone RBIs before ultimately dropping the backend of the twin bill 7-2.
Swept in a road doubleheader for the third time this season and suffering their fifth straight loss in Concordia, Barton drops to 28-13 overall and 13-9 in conference while the T-Birds take a 2-0 series lead and improve to 28-12 overall and remain in second play in league play at 14-4.
The Cougars will look to defend home turf as the series shifts to Lawson-Biggs Field Saturday afternoon for a 1:00 p.m. doubleheader.
Game 1 Recap (L 7-0)
Wyatt Yetter's 2 for 3 performance led Barton's five hits with Robby Bolin, Owen Clyne and Grant Nottlemann adding the other trio of hits.
Trailing 1-0 in the top of the second, Yetter's double extended a two-out rally advancing Nottlemann to third after reaching on error. All momentum quickly went wayside the ensuing batter on Hank Orr's infield contact ruled out despite appearing to beat out the bang-bang play at first preventing the tying run to cross.
Benefitting behind all momentum, the T-Birds broke things open with a pair of three run innings in the bottom of the second and sixth.
Reece Hemmerling (6-2) was the losing pitcher, going 5.1-innings. The sophomore ace allowed eight hits, seven runs, four earned and walked one. Jordan Bedell worked out of the final 0.2-innings with a strikeout.
Game 2 Recap (L 7-2)
Trailing 2-0 after three-innings, Gomez cut the deficit in half and as close as the Cougars would get, furnishing the Cougars first run of the afternoon on a groundout scoring Cotton's leadoff double after advancing on Yetter's fly-out.
Getting the run back in the bottom of the fifth, a four run seventh highlighted behind back-to-back home runs widened the margin to 7-1.
Producing one run over the opening 14-innings, Cotton added Barton's other run in the eighth with a sacrifice-fly driving home Trent Reitmayer's leadoff walk followed by Bolin's third single of the game to open the frame.
Aidan Sowers (4-2) suffered the loss working six-plus innings. The sophomore south paw allowed five runs on 10 hits, walked one and fanned four T-Birds. Kyler Horsman worked the final two-innings scattering three hits, two runs and two strikeouts.