Cougars split games at Seward; host Hutch Saturday with top spot in West on line

Cougars split games at Seward; host Hutch Saturday with top spot in West on line
The Barton County Community College baseball team split a pair of games at Liberal Wednesday afternoon with perennial Jayhawk West power Seward County. The Cougars dropped the opener to the Saints 9-6 then came back for a 12-5 win in the nightcap to preserve the split and kept their spot at the top of the Jayhawk West. Barton had it chances in the 1st game, out-hitting the Saints but couldn't convert those hits to runs. In the nightcap, Barton jumped to an early lead and never trailed in the win. Barton fell into a 1st place tie with Hutchinson, who swept Garden City Wednesday. Barton is now 11-5 in the West while Hutch is 12-6. Those two clubs hook up Saturday at Lawson Field for the lead in the West. Seward fell to 9-7 in West play. Barton is now 20-14 overall this season.

Highlights
Barton took a 2-0 in the opening game with a pair of 2nd innings runs. The Cougars took the lead on singles by Tyler Metcalf and Anthony Dreiling scoring Wade Gubbels and David Wilson. But the bottom of the 2nd inning saw Seward come back with 4 runs – 3 unearned. Seward made it 7-3 with three more runs in the 3rd with 3 more unearned runs. Barton was able to get the game within three runs on a couple of occasions, but never were able to mount a serious challenge to the Seward County lead.

Dreiling was 4-for-4 in the contest and drove in a pair of runs. Wilson, Eric Whinery, and Ty Stivers each had 2 hits in the game and Wilson scored twice. Lee gave up 8 runs – 4 unearned – in the loss.

In the nightcap, Barton jumped to an early lead and never trailed in the contest. The Cougars plated 4 runs in the opening half of the 1st. Austin Holt started the game with a double and after back-to-back batters were hit by a pitch, David Wilson drove in a pair with a 1-out double for a 2-0 lead. Anthony Dreiling made it 4-0 with a 2-out single that scored 2 more runs. Barton made it 6-1 after the top of the 2nd when Holt led off with a homer and Brent Biggs doubled and later scored on a Ty Stivers single.

The Saints battled back to make it 6-5 after 2 full innings, but a 4-run 4th gave the Cougars some breathing room. An error by Seward jump started the inning for Barton that saw Dreiling drive in his 3rd run of the game and Holt drove in 2 runs with a single – his 3rd hit of the game to go with the double and homer from his leadoff spot. Brandon Wells and Holt each added RBI in the 5th inning as the Barton led grew to 12-5 in the 5th.

Ryan Sheldon picked up the win, settling down after a tough 2nd inning to shut out Seward his final 4 innings of work. Nate Hedrick threw the final inning to preserve the win for the Cougars. Holt ended the game with 4 RBI, 3 hits, and 2 runs scored. Dreiling had 3 RBI, 2 hits and a run scored while Biggs, Wilson, and Eric Whinery all scored twice in the contest. Wilson also had 2 RBI as did Biggs.

Stats
Complete stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu

Next
Sat., April 8 – v Hutchinson, 1 pm (West doubleheader at Lawson Field in Great Bend)