Cloud County Baseball Advances in Plains District Tournament Following 7-3 Home Win Over Coffeyville
With a trip to the NJCAA Plains District Tournament in Wichita next week on the line, the Cloud County Community College baseball team grinded their way through five innings of baseball with a lead of just one before breaking a 3-3 tie in the bottom of the sixth by scoring four runs to close out a 7-3 win over Coffeyville Community College in game three of a best-of-three series at Lee Doyen Field on Friday, May 12th.
Extending their season for at least two more games into next week, the T-Birds improve to 37-21 on the year while winning the series over the Red Ravens 2-1 to end Coffeyville's season at 28-31.
Less than 24 hours removed from a 1-0 contest won by Coffeyville, Cloud County would see the Red Ravens use a walk and bunt single to begin the game and put two runners on with no outs. Following a sacrifice bunt that would move both runners into scoring position, Coffeyville would get a two-RBI double into the right-center field gap from shortstop Tyler Gundelfinger as the Red Ravens would jump out to a 2-0 lead after half an inning of action.
It wouldn't just be Coffeyville who would find their way onto the scoreboard in the first as a one-out walk drawn by Gavin Roy in the bottom of the first would be followed by a passed ball and flyout by Danny Infante to move Roy to third with two outs in the inning. Continuing his hot week at the plate, sophomore Anthony Taggart would deliver with an RBI single to score Roy before seeing Kolden Howerton draw a walk as the T-Birds would have a two-out rally in the works. Getting his first at-bat of the series in game three, sophomore Justin Johnson would follow with a game-tying RBI single into right-center field as Cloud County would match the two-run inning by Coffeyville to keep things even heading into the second.
Back-to-back strikeouts from CCCC starting pitcher Jack Mount would give the Val Des Monts, Quebec native not only four consecutive punch outs in the game but the Cloud County career-strikeout record with his third of the day to surpass Blake Renner (2002-03) who had 142 in his career as a T-Bird. Coffeyville would end up stranding a two-out double in the inning to allow Cloud County to get back to the plate where sophomore Alex Diaz would drive the first pitch he saw to deep left-center field and over the wall for a go-ahead solo home run. The next seven batters of the game would be retired in order as the T-Birds would carry a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the third and strand a pair of runners after putting Taggart on by an error and Johnson on with a two-out walk.
With Cloud County still holding onto a 3-2 lead into the top of the fifth, Coffeyville would begin to make some noise on offense by drawing a leadoff walk before utilizing a sacrifice bunt to put the game-tying run in scoring position with one out and three hole hitter Mason Holton due up. Holton, who also started the game as the Red Raven pitcher, would help out his own cause by delivering with an RBI single through the left side of the infield to tie things back up at 3-3 before seeing Mount retire the final two batters he would face with a flyout and strikeout.
The momentum gained by Coffeyville in the top of the inning would carry over into the bottom of the fifth as a one-two-three defensive stand would allow the Red Ravens to come back up where they would face reliever Cole Askew and see a one-two-three inning of their own flip momentum back in favor of the T-Birds. As the pitch count would climb over 100 pitches for Holton, Cloud County would get an infield single from Howerton to lead off the inning before a strikeout and walk drawn by Eric Foufoulas after falling behind in the count 0-2 to put the go-ahead run in scoring position and another rally being put together by CCCC. Having delivered once already in the game, Diaz would come through again for Cloud County with an RBI single to score Howerton from second to not only put the T-Birds back out in front but also knock Holton from the game as the lead would be back to Cloud County with the rally showing no signs of stopping.
Welcoming reliever Grayson Walden to the game on the first pitch thrown, catcher Karson Green would launch CCCC's second home run of the game in the form of a three-run blast to left-center field as the one-run lead would suddenly become four for the T-Birds as momentum would be fully in favor of Cloud County. The T-Bird rally would look to continue on a Paul Schuyler bunt single but be shut down as the next-two batters would be retired to end the inning despite the damage having already been done.
Allowing a leadoff walk before inducing a double-play, Askew would face the minimum in the eighth before seeing Cloud County be held off the scoreboard in their end of the inning to send things to the ninth where three outs is all that would stand between the T-Birds and a chance to continue their season into next week. A leadoff single by Quentin Platt would look to give Coffeyville some life in the ninth, but a flyout would put the Red Ravens down to just two outs offensively to work with. Another potential sign of a rally would be followed by a walk from pinch-hitter Drake Unrein, but a sliding catch from Howerton in right field for the second out of the inning would again flip momentum back into the Cloud County dugout. Down to their final out and the top of the order up, Askew wouldn't waste any time going after Coffeyville's best hitter in Carson Schrack by striking out the Edgerton, Kansas native o on four pitches to officially end the Red Raven season.
Clutch hits in big moments would see Cloud County have seven hits in the game despite stranding seven base runners as six walks and a hit batter would provide numerous opportunities on the base paths for CCCC's seven runs. Coffeyville would also record seven hits in the game and strand seven runners as nine strikeouts which included four strikeouts that stranded six runners ultimately being the undoing of the Red Raven offense. Only one player for both teams would record a multi-hit game on the day, with Diaz going two-for-three for Cloud County while driving in both go-ahead runs in the game for the T-Birds.
A seven-strikeout day for Mount would see the sophomore throw five innings and allow three runs on five hits before turning the game over to Askew who had his longest outing of the year to pick up his second win and improve to 2-1 after throwing four shutout innings on 48 pitches.
What's Next?
The 2023 NJCAA Plains District Tournament bracket is officially set as Cloud County will play in the fourth and final game of day one with a 7 PM contest against Cowley College. The Tigers earned a walk-off victory over Pratt in a winner-take-all game three on Friday afternoon to advance as all eight host sites for the best-of-three series that took place moved on to Wichita. All remaining games of the Plains District Tournament will be held at Eck Stadium on the campus of Wichita State University, with Barton and Kansas City Kansas finishing off the top half of the bracket along with Cloud County and Cowley. The bottom half of the bracket will see Fort Scott take on Butler in the first game of the day at 10 AM on Wednesday while Johnson County and Seward County will be the other game in the bottom half of the bracket. A full preview of next week's action will be released at www.cloudtbirds.com early next week.