Taking another positive step in the program, the Barton Community College softball team split a pair of five-inning games with Butler Community College Thursday afternoon at Cougar Field. In the first game, the Lady Cougars knocked off the Grizzlies 11-3 to break a twenty-game losing streak to Butler dating back to 2010 including nine straight on the Lady Cougars' home turf. The Grizzlies got revenge in the second game behind an eight run fifth inning leading to a 12-4 to send Barton to its fifth conference doubleheader split of the season. Barton moves to 5-7 in Jayhawk West play and 19-10 on the season while Butler goes to 7-3 in the Jayhawk West and 18-11 overall. The Lady Cougars will hit the road for their next eight games beginning with four games this weekend at Butler's Buco Bash before heading to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to take on Oklahoma Wesleyan University on Monday. Barton will then return to conference play on Wednesday with a trip to Colby Community College before its next home games coming Saturday, April 4, against Seward County Community College.
Game one didn't start out as Barton would have liked as three walks, an error, and a single led to two runs for Butler's first and only lead of the game. Headed to the home half, Bailey Hensley led off the inning and then advanced to third as Brianna Ward reached base on an infield error. Going 2-for-3 in the first game, Erica Harper came up empty on this at-bat but Kylie Everill had her teammate's back blasting a 2-0 pitch deep to left field giving the Lady Cougars a 3-2 lead.
Surviving the first inning, Barton starter Holly Posegate settled in sending the Grizzlies down in order in the second. Getting the aid of consecutive Butler infield errors allowing Jenna Hosey and Braydee Bakovich aboard to begin the inning, Butler starter Jenny Hittinger appeared out of the inning following a McKenna Mauler sacrifice and Hensley line out to center. Ward had better ideas sending a single up the middle plating two then one pitch later Harper sent a line drive over the right field fence for her eleventh homerun of the season. A dropped fly ball to the outfield, the third Butler error of the inning, continued the inning as Everill hustled in to slide safely into second base. Two pitches later Everill moved to third on a passed ball then Posegate opened up the salt shaker driving the next pitch up the middle giving Barton an 8-2 lead after two innings of play.
Megan Wurts gave Butler some much needed energy opening the third with her first of two homeruns in the doubleheader with a deep blast to center. The blast prompted Barton Head Coach Marc Benjamin to make a call to the bullpen bringing in Taylor Bugner. Digging Morgan Heckart a 1-2 hole, Heckart fouled off one pitch before sending a line drive to left center for a double. It would be the last hit for the Grizzlies as the freshman from Garden Plain retired the next nine batters to thwart any Butler hope of a comeback.
Following a leadoff single by Jenna Hosey, Bakovich fought off a 1-2 and delivered her best Heckart impression driving a ball to the left field fence for a RBI double. Two outs later Ward delivered her third of four RBIs with a hard single down the left field line off the mitt of a diving Monica Islava allowing Bakovich to speed around the bases giving Barton a 10-3 third inning lead.
A Caitlin Garcia walk was all Barton could muster in the fourth but a Hensley leadoff walk would provide a final nail in the coffin in the fifth. Staying alive fouling off a full-count pitch, Ward made the most of the next pitch delivering a left field double scoring the speedy Hensley from first base clinching the run rule victory.
Bugner picked up the win improving to 9-2 on the season slamming the door on the Grizzlies for only one hit in three innings of work while striking out three.
Ward led a 10-3 Barton hit advantage going 3-for-4 with four RBIs while Harper, who was recently awarded the Jayhawk player of the week for the second time this season, drove home two runs in her 2-for-3 performance.
One couldn't blame the Lady Cougars for coming out a little "hungover" from their first game victory and Aujanae McCoy was not about to bring an aspirin immediately putting pressure on the Barton defense forcing a Bugner errant throw to first and continuing on to second base. Two pitches later McCoy stole third base then scored as Wurts lifted a short right field sacrifice fly.
McCoy induced another Bugner error to begin the third resulting in two additional bases and creating another easy sac fly RBI for Wurts. Bugner battled back to strike out Morgan Heckart but Islava kept the inning alive with a solo shot to deep left center. Ahead in the count 3-1, Ally Knopp made it two in a row with an almost identical shot staking Butler to a four run third inning lead.
The Lady Cougars struck back in the home half getting a Hensley one-out walk and a Harper two-out single up the middle. Fouling off the first full-count pitch, Everill drove the next pitch deep to straight away center for her sixth RBI of the twin bill cutting the deficit to one.
Coming in to get the final out in the third, reliever Posegate maintained the Barton momentum striking out two in the fourth and getting the third from a great diving catch in foul territory behind the dish by Garcia.
Loading up the bases with one-out following a Hosey single and Bakovich and Mauler reaching on fielder's choices, Barton appeared to be ready to claim its first lead of game two. Facing the top of the Lady Cougars' lineup, credit Butler starter Kaelah McMullin getting Hensley on a foul pop out then induced a Ward groundout to end the Barton threat.
The Grizzlies would quickly put the game away in the fifth as Islava and Knopp would go back-to-back for the second time in the game, Islava with a two-run blast to right center followed by Knopp blast to left center. Returning to the center circle for the Lady Cougars, Bugner was then greeted on the first pitch by Gracie Bogle's deep fly to left field as the Grizzlies struck for four runs on the three consecutive homeruns.
Following consecutive hit batsman, Karlie Peck sent a line drive double to right center and two pitches later McCoy was thrown out stretching a single to a double but not before two more runs crossed the plate. One pitch later, Wurts connected on her second dinger of the doubleheader with a straight away scorcher capping off an eight run four homerun inning to push the lead out to 12-3.
On the verge of being run-ruled, the Lady Cougars fought back beginning with a leadoff single up the middle and Everill drawing a walk. McMullin then got Posegate to ground into a fielder's choice eliminating Harper from the base paths but an infield error on Garcia's fielder's choice would score Everill as Barton had two aboard with only one out. However another fielder's choice followed and McMullin induced a come-backer off the bat of Bakovich to end the game.
Getting the win in game one, the fatigued Bugner took the game two loss dropping to 9-3 surrendering nine runs on seven hits in 3.1 innings of work.
Plate production was hard to come by for the Lady Cougar lineup getting out hit 10-5 as Harper's 2-for-3 performance was the lone-multi hit. Coming off a 5-for-9 eight RBI performance two days earlier in Pratt, Harper kept her hot bat rolling going 4-for-6 against Butler driving in two runs.