by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
Pitchers stepped front and center in leading Kansas City Kansas Community College to a Jayhawk Conference softball sweep of Coffeyville Friday.
Megan Sumonja scattered eight hits in a 5-1 opening game while Megan Mason registered her first shutout with a 6-hit performance in a 4-0 nightcap win.
The sweep evened the Blue Devils’ record at 12-12 heading into a home doubleheader against Labette Saturday at 2 p.m.
Sumonja, a sophomore from Lawrence, might have had a shutout were it not for a wild pitch following a pair of singles in the first inning. Coffeyville put two runners on in the second but no more than one an inning the final five against Sumonja, who struck out five and walked one.
The Blue Devils backed her with 14 hits including three each by Hannah Bishop and Candice Jennings and two apiece by Kaylynn Stratton and LaTisha Thomas while Mikaela Hoffart and Amy-Grace Wilson accounted for four runs with two RBI each.
KCKCC bunched five singles in the first to take a 2-0 lead. Stratton, Bishop and Kasick started the game with singles and Jennings and Katherine Stringer closed out the inning with hits. The Blue Devils then put the game out of reach with three runs in the fifth. After singles by Stratton and Bishop and a walk loaded the bases, Hoffart’s sacrifice fly scored one run and Wilson singled in two more.
A sophomore from Belton, Mo., Mason allowed more than one base runner in only the second and seventh innings in her 4-0 whitewashing in the second game. She struck out two and walked two in the 6-hitter.
Hoffart and Wilson also had two RBI games in the nightcap. A one-out triple by Bishop and a Hoffart single gave the Blue Devils the only run they needed in the first. They added two more in the third on Wilson’s 2-run double after loading the bases on singles by Stratton and Kasick sandwiched around a walk. A double by Kasick and Hoffart’s single scored the final run in the fifth.
Bishop, Kasick, Hoffart and LaTisha Thomas all had two hits and Stringer doubled in a 12-hit attack in the nightcap although the Blue Devils left runners on base in six innings.