Barton rallies for series split with Butler; Schlick tosses 3-hitter

Barton rallies for series split with Butler; Schlick tosses 3-hitter
The Barton Community College baseball team bounced back from a forgetful Saturday to have a memorable Sunday in its Jayhawk West series this past weekend at Lawson-Biggs Field in Great Bend. The Cougars dropped a pair of games Saturday to co-West leader Butler – one in very tough fashion – then swept the Grizzlies Sunday – both down the wire. Barton won Sunday 1-0 behind a 3-hit gem from freshman Levi Schlick. The Cougars won the 2nd game in dramatic come-from-behind fashion in extra innings, 10-9 in 10 innings.  Butler won Saturday games 7-3 in 9 innings and 17-5. The Cougars are now 12-12 in the West and 22-16 overall. Butler is 14-6 in the West and 22-13 overall. Barton is out of conference play for a while hosting the Bethany JV Monday and Southeast Nebraska this weekend.

Highlights
The series didn't start like the Cougars would have liked, surrendering a 1-run lead just one out from victory in the opener. But a clutch base hit by Butler tied the game in the 7th and the Grizzlies put the game away with 4 in the 9th. Barton got a good pitching effort from Landon Fall in the loss as the sophomore went into the 10th inning before leaving the contest. He scattered 11 hits in his 9 1/3 innings of work with 8 strike outs. The Cougars were never in the 2nd game, trailing 11-1 after 2 innings of play. Five Cougar errors contributed to the setback.

Sunday was an entirely different story for the Cougars. Schlick was in control from the outset in the opener, facing 25 batters in the win – just 4 over the limit for the 7 inning pitchers' duel. The lone run in the contest came early as Barton started the bottom of the 1st with back-to-back hits to produce a run. Jordan Slade singled to center to lead off for the Cougars and Brandon Hoefler followed with a double to left to score Slade. It was Hoefler 1st game hitting in the No. 2 spot in the order after hitting 9th nearly all season.

From there it was all Schlick. The 6-6 lefty from Colby gave up a walk and hit with 2-out in the 1st then sat down the next 12 batters that came to the plate. The Grizzlies did not get a runner past 1st base after that opening inning as Schlick improved to 4-3. He leads the Cougars with a stellar 1.39 ERA with opponents hitting just .179 against him. In his last 2 outings, Schlick has thrown complete games, allowing a combined 5 hits and 1 run. Butler's Kyle Kinman was impressive as well on the mound, allowing just 6 hits and the 1 earned run. He faced just 5 batters over the minimum himself in the loss.

The 2nd game had more ups and downs. Barton took a 4-1 lead after a 3-run 4th inning highlighted by three extra base hits to start the inning. Michael Tennessen started things with a triple off the left center field wall followed by doubles from Charles Trottier and Nathan Miller. Augie Morton added a double one out later to cap the 3-run inning. That started a game of back-and-forth. Butler scored 5 times in its next at bat to take a 5-4 lead before the Cougars evened things in the bottom of the 5th. Butler again took a 1-run lead in the top of the 6th before a pair of Barton runs in the bottom gave the Cougars a 7-6 lead. This time it was a key 2-out hit as Hoefler singled in Hugo Hernandez and Morton for the lead.

The game stayed that way until the top of the 9th inning when Barton – like the opening game of the series – was just a single out away from victory when Butler tied the contest and sent it to extra innings. Butler appeared to have taken control of the contest with a pair of runs in the top of the 10th. Barton, though, had a rally in them this time.

Hernandez started the 10th with a drag bunt single and Hoefler collected his 4th hit of the game one out later to put the tying runs on base. It was the start of 4 straight hits for Barton. Mitch Slauter singled to score Hernandez and move Hoefler just 90 feet from tying the game. He did that on a Tennessen single to right and Barton won the game when Charles Trottier made it four straight singles with a shot to center to score Slauter from 2nd for a dramatic 10-9 win.

Barton banged out 22 hits in the contest with Hoefler and Tennessen each collecting 4 and Trottier 3. Ian Smith picked up the win, throwing the final two innings.

Barton has its bye date in the West this weekend and will play host to Southeast Nebraska. Barton will play a two 7 inning game with Southeast on Saturday then have a single 9-inning contest Sunday. Saturday's twinbill will start at 3 pm with the Sunday contest going at 1 pm.

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

Comments from Coach Mike Warren
Day 1 - After losing game 1 the way we did, I didn't think we approached game two very well. We haven't done a very good job all year after tough losses.

Day 2, Game 1 – Levi Schlick was outstanding. We needed that pitching performance after the first two games of the series. We played outstanding defense behind him and little did we know at the time but the game was won in the first inning.

Day 2, Game 2 – I thought we responded well after losing the lead in the ninth and falling behind in the 10th. It was the same scenario as game 1 in the series but we showed some character coming back to win it in the 10th. We left a lot of runners on base having 22 hits but we kept up the pressure and didn't let that get us down. Ian Smith did a great job in relief. Even though he gave up 3 runs in 2 innings, not one hit that he gave up was hit hard. He kept the 10th inning from getting out of hand and gave us a chance to win the game.

Next
April 12 – v Bethany JV, 5 pm (1 9-inning game at Lawson-Biggs Field at Great Bend)