Cougars split West games at Garden; stumble at Brown Mackie

Cougars split West games at Garden; stumble at Brown Mackie
The Barton County Community College baseball team split a pair of Jayhawk West games this weekend in Garden City then dropped a single game affair to Brown Mackie. Barton's split of games in Garden City keeps the Cougars near the top of the West with a 4-2 record is West play. The split also snapped the Cougars 5-game winning streak. Barton is now 12-9 overall this season.

Highlights
Barton's run of exciting games this year doesn't seemed to be coming to an end anytime soon. Once again the Cougars were involved in some thrillers over the weekend, losing a 10-7 contest to start things in Garden before capturing a 17-14 win over the Broncbusters in the nightcap. Barton lost an 8-7 extra inning decision to Brown Mackie Sunday in Salina.

Barton fell behind Garden early in the opening, trailing 7-0 after 3 innings of action. Barton chipped into that lead with a 3-run 5th inning to make it 7-4. The inning was highlighted by a 2-run homer off the bat of Chris Evans. Garden quickly pushed that margin back to 6 at 10-4 with a 3-run 5th of its own. Barton put together back-to-back 3-run innings with 3 more in the 6th, cutting the lead to 10-7 on Andrew Small's 2-run triple that scored Brent Biggs and Andrew Giambrone. That was as close as the Cougars would get, however, ending a 5-game winning streak.

Barton fell behind 3-1 after the opening inning of the nightcap but that was just a small prelude to the amount of runs to be scored by the two clubs. Barton still trailed 7-4 heading into the top of the 5th when the real fireworks began. The Cougars took the lead in the top of the inning with a 6 spot. Michael Stettinger belted a 3-run homer and Andrew Small drove in a pair with a double as Barton took a 10-7 lead. It was short-lived, however, as Garden answered with 5 in the bottom inning to retake the lead at 12-10.

The seesaw battled continued with Barton grabbing a 14-12 lead in the top of the 6th with 4 more runs. Evans' 2nd homer of the day – this time a 3-run shot – gave the Cougars the lead. After Garden made it 14-13 in the bottom of the inning, Barton gave itself some cushion with 3 more runs in the 7th. This time it was a Tino McFerran 2-run double that highlighted the inning. Small, McFerran, Evans, and Stettinger each had 3 or more RBI in the win. Small also had 3 hits and scored 3 times. Biggs scored 3 times as well.

Sunday in Salina was another back-and-forth battle with coming up on the short end this time. The Cougars continued their hot hitting from Saturday with 3 quick runs in the top of the 1st against Brown Mackie but the Lions answered with 3 of their own in the bottom of the inning. From there the lead changed hands until Barton tied it at 6-all with a Mark Stoltz RBI single to score Troy Morgan. The game remained tied at 6-all until the 10th inning when Barton took a 7-6 lead when Stoltz scored on an error. But the Cougars couldn't hold the lead as Brown Mackie scored twice in the bottom of the 10th for the win.

Results
Box scores from all the games can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
Wed., March 23 – v Cloud County, 4 pm (Jayhawk West doubleheader at Cougar Fields)