by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC sports information
Kansas City Kansas Community College will hold a first-round NJCAA Division I baseball playoff series. Whether it’s as the No. 3 seed or No. 4 will be determined by the Blue Devils season-ending four game series with Coffeyville this week.
The Blue Devils moved closer to a third place finish with a 10-5 win at Allen County but dropped the nightcap 17-4.
At 16-8, the Blue Devils can’t overcome co-leaders Johnson County and Cowley College (both 20-4) but one win over Coffeyville (14-14) will wrap up third place in the series that starts Thursday in Coffeyville and concludes Saturday at KCKCC. First placed will be decided when JCCC and Cowley collide in four games.
Back-to-back home runs by Raymond Paniagua and Brendyn Bard broke a 5-5 deadlock in the top of the seventh inning in the 10-5 opener. The Blue Devils then tacked on another three insurance runs on singles by Cole Dawson, Brock Stewart and Camden Karlin, Beau Grable’s sacrifice fly and a two-out, two-run single by Caleb Adams.
Chase Terrell (5-0) got the win, retiring the Red Devils in order in both the sixth and seventh innings after starter Gabriel Ramos had given up five runs on six hits in five innings. Dawson led a 16-hit KCKCC attack with three hits while Adams, Paniagua, Bard, Stewart and Karlin had two each.
The Blue Devils scored in just two innings, rapping out five hits in taking a 5-0 lead in the first. After a hit batsman and walk, Adams singled in the first run and Bard doubled in two more. Singles by Dawson, Karlin and Grable added the final two.
KCKCC led the nightcap 4-3 early and trailed only 6-4 before Allen scored 11 runs in the final two innings.
All four Blue Devil runs came on Paniagua’s grand slam home run in the third inning. Limited to seven hits, Cole Silbowski was the only Blue Devil with two. KCKCC used five pitchers in seven innings and each of the five gave up at least two runs.