Cougars split Region, West games with Cloud
The Barton County Community College softball team split a pair of contests Tuesday afternoon at Cougars Fields with Cloud County. The Cougars won the opener by a 4-0 count then lost in the nightcap, 3-1. The contests were both Jayhawk West and Region VI contests, putting Barton at 3-3 in West action and 3-1 in Region VI play. Barton is 20-22 overall after a 9-19 start to the season. The Cougars were scheduled to play at Garden City Wednesday, but weather has pushed that contest back to April 21. That, barring more rescheduling, will be the regular season finale. Cloud is now 9-18 overall, 3-7 in the West, and 2-6 in Region VI.
Highlights
Barton rode another strong pitching effort from Rosamar Gonzalez in the opening contest. Gonzalez threw her 3rd shutout in her last 5 outings in the 4-0 win. In another game during that stretch, Gonzalez gave up 1 run. She has won 5 of her last 6 outings, giving up a total of 9 runs in those games – 5 of which were earned. Gonzalez had a streak of 19 1/3 scoreless innings at one point. Tuesday against Cloud, she scattered 3 hits and walked 3 while striking out 8 in the win to improve to 6-6 on the season.
Offensively, Barton took the lead in the opening inning, scoring on a single from Heather Watson that plated Natohsa Stewart, who started the inning with a double. The Cougars pushed the lead to 2-0 in the 4th when Watson scored on an Amanda Baker grounder. The Cougars added another run in the 5th when Kelly Delgado scored on an Ashlee Early fly out. Barton rounded out the scoring in the 6th, adding another run on an Early single that scored Megan Zumbrunn.
The 2nd game wasn't as kind to Barton as the Cougars fell behind early and never caught the Thunderbirds. Cloud scored a pair of unearned runs in the 1st inning and another unearned run in the 3rd to take a 3-0 lead. Barton made it 3-1 in the bottom of the 3rd as Stewart singled in Vanessa Roy, but the Cougars could get no closer. Chelsea Jurgensen came on to pitch 4 2/3 innings of scoreless softball in relief but Barton couldn't take advantage of it with some timely hitting. Jurgensen struck out 6 and allowed just 1 hit with no walks in her stint.
Stats
Stats can be found on the Barton website at www.bartonccc.edu/sports
Next
April 7 – v Dodge City, 3 pm (Jayhawk West contest at Cougar Fields)