The Barton Community College softball team hit the road to conclude the regular season returning home with a 1-2 record but sitting in prime position for the second seed in the upcoming region tournament. Returning to Liberal on Saturday to conclude the second game of the April 13 postponed game, the Cougars finished off Seward County Community College 10-1 to complete the sweep. Barton then reboarded the vans on Sunday traveling to El Dorado to face top ranked Butler Community College with the Grizzlies rolling to its 84th straight victory with 8-0 and 15-2 wins.
The weekend concluded the regular season for the Cougars at 14-10 in conference play and 29-14 overall. With Butler taking care of Seward County on Monday, Barton finished in a three-way tie in the standings with the Saints and Colby Community College but own the tie-breaker over each to earn the second seed in the upcoming Region VI Tournament.
Looking ahead to the tournament, the Cougars will open play at 5:00 p.m. on Friday at El Dorado's East Park against seventh seeded Pratt Community College. The winner will advance to Saturday's 1:00 p.m. game against the winner of third seeded Seward County and sixth seed Garden City with the loser getting the early 9:00 a.m. game to stay alive in the tournament.
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Game two of the Seward County series began in the home half of the third inning with Barton on the top side of a 9-0 score. The Cougars had put four on the board in both the first and third inning with a solo run coming in the second inning.
Barton jumped on the Saints in the first inning with a Payton Reynolds single and Jayden Gonzales reaching on a fielder's choice setting up Andreana Reynolds' triple to right field. Payton Summers followed with an RBI double and with two outs, Kaci Isaacson singled to right driving home Summers before getting tagged out trying to grab a double.
Lydia Konrade led off the second with a double but was thrown out at the plate after Maddison Schofield's double to left. A two-out single by P. Reynolds' would then drive in the lone run of the third.
The left handed Konrade would go back to the right field third of the diamond, lighting up the scoreboard in the third with a drive over the right field fence in plating the three runs. Jordan Terrones then drew a full-count walk before Schofield connected on her second double of the game pushing the Barton lead to 9-0.
Resuming on Saturday, both teams put up solo runs in the fifth inning with the Cougars' Leilani Medina driving in a run with a two-out double while two singles and a groundout produced the Saints' lone run of the game.
P. Reynolds picked up the victory limiting the Saints to just five hits while striking out three against no walks. Four players had multi-hit games as the Cougars connected on seven extra base hits amongst their eleven total hits.
Sunday's doubleheader against Butler started off mild enough with the Cougars trailing 1-0 to the home half of the third but a five run inning aided by two Barton errors was blown open by a three run homerun. The game would end on the Grizzlies' third long ball as Darian Hale belted her second with two-outs in the sixth with a two strike drive over the left field fence for the final two runs of the 8-0 victory.
Freshman A. Reynolds gave Barton a brief 2-0 lead in game two belting her fourth home run of the year before Butler tied it up in the home half stringing a two-out single and double before an error allowed the tying run to cross the plate.
Three more errors helped the Grizzlies tack on three more runs in the second with the fifth error of the game helping to set up Butler's dagger of an eight run third inning to cruise to the 15-2 five inning run rule.