Barton finishes tied for 5th in West; plays Coffeyville in El Dorado in Sub Regional

Barton finishes tied for 5th in West; plays Coffeyville in El Dorado in Sub Regional
The Barton Community College baseball team lost 3 of 4 games over the weekend in its Jayhawk West finale at Lawson-Biggs Field in Great Bend. The Cougars won the opener Saturday with Garden City then lost the next three to finish tied for 5th in the Jayhawk West but taking the 6th seed from the West to the post season. After a 5-4 win in 12 innings to start Saturday the Cougars lost 3-2 in 8 innings in the nightcap as the opening day produced a pair of extra inning contests. Sunday also had two close games as Barton lost 4-2 in the opener and 9-8 in the series finale. Barton finishes West play at 16-16 and is 31-22 overall. Garden City finished 3rd in the conference with a 21-11 West record and is 37-15 overall. The Broncbusters are ranked No. 19 in the NJCAA. Barton will head to El Dorado for a 4-team double elimination tournament in Region VI play with the winner of that going on to Wichita for the Region VI Championships the following weekend. Barton will take on Coffeyville Saturday at McDonald Park in El Dorado at 3 pm

Highlights
The Cougars won the opener, rallying from a 4-0 deficit with 4 runs in the bottom of the 6th. Garden scored three in the top of inning to push that lead to 4-0 before the Cougars evened the score. Hugo Hernandez singled to lead off the inning and Jordan Slade followed with a walk. Both runners moved up on a wild pitch and scored on consecutive ground outs to make it 4-2. With 2 outs and bases empty, Barton started another rally. Michael Tennessen singled and Ryan Busboom was hit by a pitch to put a pair of runners on base. Following a Levi Schlick walk to load the bases Ian Smith delivered a 2-run single to even the contest. That is where the game stayed for the next 6 innings. Barton finally broke the scoreless stretch and won the game in the 12th when Busboom drove in Hoefler from 3rd with a 2-out single and a 5-4 win. Ben Minnihan picked up the win in relief, pitching the final 2 scoreless innings. The Barton bullpen threw 6 scoreless relief innings in the win.

Barton had its chances for a sweep on the opening day behind a strong pitching effort from Ben French. French cruised through the 1st 5 innings of work without allowing a hit. But he ran into some trouble in the 6th when Garden started with a single and double to score on a run. The other runner eventually came into score on a pair of sacrifices to even the contest at 2-all. Barton loaded the bases in the bottom of the 7th with just one out but failed to score and the game went to extra inning where the Broncbusters scored a run to win 4-3. Barton left 2 more runners stranded in the bottom of the 8th. The Cougars left a total of 12 on base during the loss to just 5 for the Broncbusters. French took the loss despite allowing just 3 hits.

Barton received another good effort on the mound to start Sunday as Landon Fall threw a complete game allowing 6 hits. But, again, Garden most the most of those hits scoring 4 times. The Broncbusters left just 2 runners on base. Barton left 6 on base this time and despite outhitting Garden 8-6 trailed most of the way. Garden scored 3 in the 3rd to do a bulk of its damage.

After pitching dominated the opening 3 games, runs finally came to the park in the final game during Garden's 9-8 win. Barton scored 4 in the 2nd to take the lead and led 5-1 heading into the 4th when Garden scored 5 times to take the lead and added 2 more in the 4th for an 8-5 lead. The Broncbusters made it 9-5 before Barton scored 3 times in the 7th to cut the lead to 9-8. That is where it stayed, however, as neither team scored over the final two innings of work.

Notes
Both teams hit less than .250 during the series, which provided the best weather of the season. Barton outhit the Broncbusters in the 1st 3 games then both teams had 11 hits to end the series. Garden was just a bit more productive with its hits than were the Cougars as pitching dominated the much of the weekend.

About the Red Ravens
The Cougars will be open play with East 3 seed Coffeyville. The Red Ravens finished their season 1-5 but of those 6 games only two were conference games which they split with Independence, who is also in El Dorado to take on Butler at Noon Saturday. Coffeyville finished the East season with a 21-15 record and were 26-30 overall – giving the Red Ravens a 5-15 mark outside East play. Coffeyville has scored in double digits in 20 games this year. They were the only team to sweep East Champion Johnson this season in a series, winning 7-5 and 14-7 in Coffeyville back on March 28. Coffeyville lists 10 pitchers on its roster with 6 of those being lefties.

El Dorado Sub Regional
Saturday May 8
G1 – (W2) Butler v (E7) Independence Noon
G2 – (E3) Coffeyville v (W6) Barton 3 pm
G3 – Loser G1 v Loser G2 6 pm
Sunday May 9
G4 – Winner G1 v Winner G2 1 pm
G5 – Winner G3 v Loser G4 4 pm
Monday May 10
G6 – Winner G4 v Winner G5 1 pm – Championship
G7 – Same teams as G6 if needed

Stats
Stats can be found at www.bartonccc.edu/sports

Next
May 8 – v Coffeyville 3 pm (Region VI playoffs at McDonald Park in El Dorado)