Cougars drop doubleheader to No. 7 Grizzlies

The Barton Community College softball team may have dropped a doubleheader to No. 7 Butler Community College, but the Lady Cougars made things interesting in throwing a few punches of their own.   Trailing 4-0 after Butler's first at-bat, the Lady Cougars cut the lead to one after three innings of play but Butler flexed its muscles with a three run fourth and seven run sixth to win game one 14-3.   The Lady Cougars regrouped for game two and despite trailing by three early, Barton battled to tie the game in the fifth only to have Butler respond with two in the sixth to win 5-3.    Butler wrapped up its conference season with the wins to improve to 15-1 in the Jayhawk and 31-7 overall while the Lady Cougars drop to 3-11 in conference dipped under the .500 mark for the first time since the start of the season at 18-19.   Barton will conclude the conference and home schedule on Friday in a 3:00 p.m. doubleheader with Seward County Community College.  The 41-10 and 8-4 second place Saints will come to Cougar Field having played back-to-back road games as Seward travels to Colby on Thursday.

Game One
Butler jumped on Barton early as the top four batters reached base and the Grizzlies put four on the board with six hits in the inning.  Bailey Hensley singled to right to begin the home half of the inning scoring on Emelia Davies' one-out double to right center, her nation's second best twenty-third of the season.  Allison Smith cut the Barton deficit in half with a two-out single to left scoring Davies.

Barton pitcher Ashlyn Osborne helped her cause in the third leading off the inning driving a 1-0 pitch over the left field fence for her fifth homerun of the season drawing the Lady Cougars to within one.

Butler answered in the top of the fourth getting three runs with two-outs in the inning as the top of the lineup came through with three singles and a walk.

Getting a leadoff single by the number nine hitter, the Grizzlies put the game away in the sixth pounding out eight hits to score seven runs for the 14-3 victory.

Osborne took the loss to drop to 10-8 on the season pitching 5.1 innings surrendering seventeen hits and thirteen runs, eight of which were earned.  Butler ace Sydnee Eck improved to 22-4 on the season limiting the Barton bats to only five hits and striking out seven.

Davies was the lone multi-hit performer in the Lady Cougar lineup going 2-3 driving in one coming from her first inning double. 

Game Two
In a near repeat of game one, Butler jumped out to an early lead but this time were only to get two across the plate.  The Grizzlies extended the lead to three in the third getting a leadoff left-center long ball from Sydnee Eck, her second RBI of the game.

With both teams going quiet into the fifth, Candace Bollig broke through with a leadoff single.  Pinch hitter Brianna Ward came off the bench with single over third base giving Barton their first serious scoring opportunity since the third inning.  Following a Stephanie Morrison fly out to left, Darby Grizzard's single to center to score Bollig cut the deficit to one.  Eck, who relieved starting pitcher Abbie Clanton, then got Bailey Hensley to groundout to first but advanced both runners to scoring position.  Down to the final out, Ashlyn Osborne delivered her third hit of the day with a single to left to drive home Ward and Grizzard to tie it up.

Butler shortstop Monica Islava gave Butler an immediate boost at the top of the sixth delivering a double to center.  Following a walk, the Cougar defense stepped up as Osborne struck out her fourth Grizzly of the game and the defense eliminated Islava from the base path in a run down.  But Joselyn Dean wouldn't let the Butler inning die hitting a double to the gap to score one then came home on Alyson Bressie's single to left.  

Barton was only able to get an Allison Smith hit by pitch in the final two innings as Eck shut down the Lady Cougars for the 5-3 win.

Osborne again took the loss for Barton as the sophomore went the distance pitching all but two-thirds of the day's doubleheader.  After surrendering seventeen hits in game one, Osborne limited Butler to only eight hits while striking out four.  Eck picked up her second win of the day going 4.2 innings giving up six hits while striking out four to improve to 23-4.

Osborne was also the lone multi-hit performer in the Lady Cougar lineup going 3-3 and drove in two of Barton's three runs.

Game Photos by KSportsImages.com