Cougars head to District C play as No. 2 seed; Curtis looks for 600th
The Barton County Community College softball team is doing its share on the field to earn co-conference championships and high seeds in tournaments. But the Cougars have also gotten their share of help lately as well. Not only did Garden City steal a game from Pratt to give the Cougars a share of the West title, Fort Scott did likewise against Kansas City Kansas Tuesday afternoon to push the Cougars to the No. 2 seed in the upcoming District C Tournament this weekend in Wichita. The winner of the double-elimination event held at Two Rivers Youth Complex will qualify for the NJCAA National Tournament. In addition to the tournament, Barton County Coach Tom Curtis will be looking for win No. 600. He is currently 599-426 in his career with the Cougars.
Barton (24-26) finished District C play with a 14-4 mark, 2nd only to perennial power Johnson County, which went 16-2 in the district. The Cougars will get the tournament started Saturday at Noon against the winner of the Colby/Allen County contest, which will take place at 10 am. Colby is the No. 7 seed in the tournament with a 7-11 mark while Allen County went just 3-15 on the season and is the No. 10 seed. Barton is 2-0 against Allen County this year and 4-0 against Colby. The other half of the Cougars bracket will have No. 3 KCK (13-5) against No. 6 Fort Scott (8-10).
The top half of the bracket features the top-seeded Cavaliers from Johnson County. Johnson will get the winner of the Cloud County (6-12) and Brown Mackie (3-15) game. The other half of the top bracket pits No. 4 Hutchinson (11-7) against No. 5 Highland (9-9). The tournament will run all day Saturday with the final games slated for 8 p.m. The event will conclude in the afternoon on Sunday.
Barton comes into the tournament playing good softball since returning from Spring Break. When the Cougars returned from an 0-8 trip to Texas during the break they stood at 2-13 on the season. Since that time Barton has gone 22-13. The Cougars have a record of 1-14 against team from outside the state of Kansas. Against Region VI teams this season the Cougars are 23-12.
Karina Ramirez has been the leader for Barton this season, hitting .367 at the plate and posting an 11-6 record with a 1.33 ERA on the mound. The sophomore has thrown 5 complete game shutouts and leads the team with 34 RBI. Tiffany Sallee has come on of late on the mound and now has a 9-4 mark with a 1.78 ERA. At the plate Ruby Garcia leads the team in homers with 2 and is tied for 3rd in RBI with Maggie McCoy at 17. Amanda Baker is 2nd on the team in RBI with 18. Taylor Gorjiyan and April Earley are 2nd and 3rd in hitting at .269 and .252.
The Cougars Achilles' heal this season has been defense. Barton has committed 136 errors – 2.72 per game – that have contributed to the 107 unearned runs Barton has given up – more than 2 per outing. In fact, Barton has more earned runs this year (103) than does its opponents (83). But the Cougars have been outscored 190-177.
Last season the Cougars made it to the semifinals of the loser bracket in the tournament, finishing in 4th place. The previous season Barton made it to the District C title game, losing in the final inning to Johnson County.
Bracket
A complete bracket can be found on the Barton website at www.bartonccc.edu/sports
Next
May 1-2 – at District C Championships (at Two Rivers Complex in Wichita)