Month: March 2020

Blue Devils divide, go in to break in second place

by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC

Kansas City Kansas Community College will enter a 2½-week baseball hiatus in second place in the Jayhawk Conference.

Edged 3-2 at Labette Thursday, the Blue Devils bounced back with a 16-2 win and a 4-2 conference record, one game back of Johnson County (5-1) and tied for second with Coffeyville.

With March games suspended by the KJCCC because of the coronavirus, KCKCC is tentatively scheduled to return to action April 3-4 when the Blue Devils are slated for a 3-game series at Cloud County. If the season is resumed, KCKCC will have 13 playing dates before the start of regional playoffs.

Limited to five hits in the 3-2 loss, the Blue Devils rebounded in the second game with vengeance, lashing out 19 hits and scoring in six of seven innings.

Leadaoff hitter Seth Kenagy led the way with three singles and a double; Trey Hoover drove in five runs with a single and 3-run home run; and Raymond Paniagua belted a solo home run and two singles. Six Blue Devils had two hits, Griffin Everitt, Eduardo Acosta, Jose Sosa, Tyler Henry, Palmer Hutchinson and Hoover.

The Blue Devils took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a walk and singles by Acosta, Sosa and Hoover, added a third run in the second on hits by Hutchinson, Kenagy and Everitt and made it 4-1 on a Paniagua single and Kenagy’s double.

KCKCC blew the game open with five runs in the fifth and six in the seventh. Paniagua homered, Sosa tripled, Everitt doubled and Kenagy, Acosta, Henry and Hutchinson singled in the fifth; Everitt doubled in two runs and Hoover capped the 6-run seventh with a 3-run home run.

Backed by three double plays, Gaby Ramos went the distance for the pitching win, allowing two runs on 11 hits. Striking out two and walking none, he stranded eight Cardinals.

Held to three innings the first four innings, Labette won the 3-2 nightcap with a 3-run fifth inning rally capped by a 2-run home run by Mason Pierce, the Cardinals’ ninth place hitter.

The Blue Devils took a 1-0 lead in the fourth without a hit, scoring on two hit batsmen, an error and Kenagy’s sacrifice fly and then closed to 3-2 in the sixth on Hutchinson’s solo home run. The Blue Devils had only four other hits off Labette’s Kenlee Hall, singles by Kenagy, Everitt, Acosta and Sosa. Sophomore southpaw Osvaldo Mendez (4-1) suffered his first loss, allowing six hits, striking out seven and walking one.

More closings announced

Since the COVID-19 emergency declaration, some area churches and museums have announced they will not be open, or they will scale back gatherings.

Some Wyandotte County churches have postponed or canceled services or programs on Sunday, March 15, according to the churches’ social media posts. Others are open but are encouraging people who are sick to stay home. Some churches have video links to services. Search on the church’s social media posts for more information.

The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, is closing today through April 3, according to an announcement today. The outside grounds will remain open to the public during this time. For more information, visit theworldwar.org.

The American Jazz Museum and The Blue Room club in Kansas City, Missouri, have closed temporarily to stop the spread of the COVID-19, according to an announcement today.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, will be closed to the public from March 14 through Friday, April 3, because of the effort to contain COVID-19, according to an announcement. For more information, visit https://www.nelson-atkins.org/.

The Strawberry Hill Museum, Kansas City, Kansas, canceled this weekend’s tours and events, and hopes to reschedule classes later, according to an announcement on social media.

The Wyandotte County Museum in Bonner Springs remained open, but canceled or postponed events that are scheduled there. The museum’s exhibit on the architecture of Wyandotte County was scheduled to remain open, but there are no programs in conjunction with it. The museum requested researchers to call ahead and see if the research could be conducted by staff.

A program on Saturday at Grinter Place, a state museum in Kansas City, Kansas, was canceled.

The Kansas City, Kansas, Public Libraries have canceled all programs and events through March 31, but the libraries remain open, according to an announcement. The mobile library is closed. The Turner Community Library will close from March 14 to 23 because of the temporary closure of the Turner Recreation Commission building.

Two new COVID-19 cases announced today in Kansas

There are two new COVID-19 coronavirus cases in Kansas, according to an announcement at midday by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

One was a Johnson County woman and the other was a Franklin County man, according to the announcement.

This brings the number of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in Kansas to eight, according to the KDHE.

So far, Johnson County has five cases, Wyandotte County has one case (a man in his 70s in a nursing home who died at a hospital), Butler County, one case, and Franklin County, one case, according to the KDHE.

In all, there were 135 cases that tested negative for COVID-19, the KDHE stated.

COVID-19 is believed to be spread from an infected person to another person through the air by coughing and sneezing; close personal contact, such as touching or shaking hands; touching an object or surface with the virus on it, then touching your mouth, nose or eyes; and in rare cases, contact with feces, according to KDHE information.

The symptoms are a fever, cough and shortness of breath.

Persons who think they may have COVID-19 should call their primary health care provider by phone, and wait for instructions. Call first before going to a health care provider.

KDHE has a website for more information on COVID-19, at http://www.kdheks.gov/coronavirus.


The Wyandotte County website on COVID-19 is at https://www.wycokck.org/COVID-19.

The CDC also has a COVID-19 website at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/.