Barton Baseball rallies in later innings for 6-4 series opening victory at KCK #GoBarton

Three straight run producing singles in the top of the eighth inning Friday afternoon ignited the Barton Community College baseball team from its early offensive woes against Kansas City Kansas Community College at the KCKCC Baseball Complex.

Trailing by three with nine outs to work with the Cougar offense erupted for all six of their runs over their final three at-bats to defeat the Blue Devils in comeback fashion 6-4.

The victory moves the Cougars to 5-1 on the young season while KCK slides to 5-4 overall. Next up for the two teams is Saturday's 12:00 p.m. doubleheader to close out the weekends three game set.

Stranding seven runners over the opening six innings, the Cougars finally broke through on the scoreboard in the top of the seventh clawing within 3-2, on Tate Blasi's bases loaded two-out drawn plunking bringing in Cooper Tabor's leadoff single and succeeding wild pitch scoring Kyle Graves drawn walk.

Facing a two-run deficit when coming to bat in the eighth, momentum quickly swayed back to the Barton side loading the bases with one-out behind Cesar Gomez leadoff walk, Barrett Donaldson single and Graves second walk in as many innings to flip the lineup back to the top of the order. Already with two singles on the day, Tyler Janssen's third single of the day knotted things up driving in a pair to activate three straight run producing singles with Hunter Alvord delivering the go-ahead RBI single two-pitches later and Ayden Hadley adding an insurance run with his lone hit of the afternoon driving in one.

Starting pitcher Anthony Treto took a no-decision in his second start of the season tossing the opening five innings allowing three runs, two earned, walking one and fanning six Blue Devils.

Antonio Mendez (2-0) notched his second victory of the week tossing two innings in relief scattering a trio of hits, one run with two strikeouts.

Kiernan Meredith locked down his first collegiate save with two-shutout innings permitting one walk with two strikeouts and inducing a game ending 6-4-3 double-play.