Cloud County Baseball Splits Home Doubleheader with Seward County
Returning to conference play following a non-conference win on Monday, the Cloud County Community College baseball team was able to run their conference winning streak to nine consecutive games with a 5-1 win over Seward County Community College in game one before falling 14-4 in game two to split a doubleheader at Lee Doyen Field in Concordia, Kansas on Thursday, March 21st.
Seeing a five-game winning streak snapped with a loss in game two, Cloud County now sits at 21-8 overall and 9-1 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference West Division while remaining atop the standings after entering the day as the only team across the 18-team conference to still have an unblemished conference record. Seward County earns their third-straight doubleheader split in conference play and is now 15-14 overall to go along with a 3-3 mark in the KJCCC West.
Game One:
In what was expected to be a pitcher's duel going into the series opener, the first three-plus innings of action lived up to the billing as neither CCCC or SCCC could manage to score despite both teams stranding base runners in the first inning and Cloud County seeing the bottom of the second end with the bases loaded after putting three of their first four base runners safely aboard. Another scoreless inning in the third kept things still up for grabs heading into the fourth with T-Bird starter Kevin Mannell working a one-two-three inning with a pair of strikeouts to build some momentum in the CCCC dugout heading into the bottom of the fourth. A two-out single into center field by Landon Meyer was just what the T-Birds needed as a stolen base on a pickoff attempt from Saint starter Brian Luna Alvarez was put into right field on an errant throw which allowed Meyer to score from first and break the scoreless tie.
One final inning from Mannell on the mound saw three groundouts allow the redshirt sophomore to work around a two-out single as Seward was the first team to get into their bullpen with a change prior to the bottom of the fifth with Cloud County taking full advantage of the change on the mound. Nine-hole batter Austin Coyle led the inning off by getting hit by a pitch before seeing a Paul Schuyler single and Gavin Roy sacrifice bunt put two base runners in scoring position. Nolan Freund added to the T-Bird lead with an RBI single through the left side of the infield followed by a Jakob Poturnak RBI single down the left field line as the lead grew to 3-0 before seeing a Demitri Shakotko infield single on a ball that hit Poturnak on the base paths for the second out of the inning. The rally was not done however for CCCC as Noah Konings brought home both Freund and Shakotko with a two-RBI double down the left-field line to finish off a four-run inning.
The first of four eventual pitching changes for the T-Birds came to begin the top of the sixth as CCCC made the call to Zach Sharshel before seeing a walk and single put runners on the corners for the Saints to force another pitching change with Conlin Grady coming on as the second reliever of the inning. Following an RBI single down the left field line that brought home a Seward County run to cut into the Cloud County lead, Grady induced an infield fly to Schuyler at second base before getting an inning-ending 1-6-3 double play to fend off the rally and limit the damage to just one run. Unable to add to their lead in the bottom of the sixth, CCCC found that closing out the game in the top of the seventh was anything but easy as a walk and single put two runners on for the SCCC before a strikeout and flyout to get the T-Birds one out away from the victory. An infield single on a slip by Roy after fielding the ball loaded the bases for Seward while bringing up their best hitter in Trenton Rowan which forced another T-Bird pitching change with Caden Walker coming on for the lefty-lefty matchup to induce a game-ending groundout to earn his first save of the year.
Stranding eight Seward County runners, the CCCC pitching staff finished with eight total strikeouts with Mannell recording seven and improving to 4-0 on the mound and Myles Chamberlain with the other strikeout as the Saints hit just .231 at the plate. Meanwhile, Cloud County finished with seven hits as Freund was the lone T-Bird to have multiple hits in the game with two and a game-high two RBI. Five of the first six batters in the lineup for CCCC had at least one hit each as the T-Birds also drew two walks and three hit batters.
Game Two:
A wild start to the back end of the doubleheader saw the Saints put the first two batters of the game safely aboard with a single and walk before a flyout that advanced both runners and a wild pitch to bring home a run and have another runner 90 feet from home plate. After another walk to put runners on the corners, CCCC escaped any further damage in the inning as an infield popup and strikeout ended the inning with the T-Birds trailing 1-0. In the bottom of the first, Cloud County sent nine batters to the plate with a two-out rally starting with a Shakotko single into the right-center field gap followed by an RBI double from Freund to tie the game before back-to-back hit batters to load the bases. With Seward County starter Tyler Wilcox on the ropes, Meyer continued the rally with a two-RBI single with Poturnak getting into home to beat the tag followed by a Cam MaCleod RBI single to finish off a four-run inning.
SCCC responded in the top of the second with a two-run home run before taking the lead in the third with three runs on two hits as the first three Saint batters of the inning safely reached base to help Seward go up 6-4 heading into the bottom of the inning. Following the first-inning rally by the T-Birds, the offense went stagnant as CCCC was retired in order in the second, third, and fourth innings before seeing a four-run fifth by SCCC put the Saints up 10-4 at the midway point of the game.
The run support by the Saints proved to be more than enough for Wilcox as the Aurora, Colorado native retired the final 25 Cloud County batters of the game as part of a 97-pitch complete game with Seward adding another two runs in the sixth and two in the ninth to finish with their third-highest scoring output of the year.
In the game, CCCC was outhit 11-4 with all four hits for the T-Birds coming in the first inning from four different players. The lone extra-base hit of the game for Cloud County came from Freund while seeing Seward County record five extra-base hits and drawing 10 walks to go along with four hit batsmen to strand a total of 10 runners despite scoring the 14 runs. Five different pitchers were used out of the bullpen for CCCC with Coats taking the loss to fall to 4-2 after throwing 80 pitches and facing 21 batters. The final reliever, Wil Yamka, was the only other T-Bird to throw more than 24 pitches, tossing 71 and matching Coats with four innings pitched.
What's Next?
Both Cloud County and Seward County will finish off their four-game series this Saturday with a 1 PM first pitch at Brent Gould Field in Liberal to kick off a doubleheader. CCCC and SCCC have split their last five doubleheaders played in Liberal with the last sweep by either team coming during the 2018 season when Cloud County won a pair of games by scores of 13-1 and 11-10 over the Saints.