by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
Kansas City Kansas and Garden City Community Colleges will go right down to the final wire Sunday for the right to advance to next week’s Region VI super-regional playoffs in Wichita.
Garden City forced a third and deciding game Saturday by building up an early 7-1 lead on the way to a 9-6 triumph. The championship game will be played Sunday at 1 p.m. with Chad Cox the expected KCKCC starter.
The Blue Devils outhit the Broncbusters 16-10 but left 11 runners on base and were unable to score the final six innings. Seven of Garden City’s 10 hits came in the first two innings off starter Shea Stephens. After two singles to start the game, the Broncbusters got 2-run doubles from Jesse Gonzales and Rafael Villeia to take a 5-0 lead and they got another 2-run double from Gonzales for a 7-1 lead in the second.
KCKCC closed to 7-6 after three innings but could not score again against reliever Connor Burns, who scattered seven hits, struck out three and walked one in six scoreless innings.
Tyler Pittman led the Blue Devils 16-hit attack with a triple and three singles while Chase Redick ripped three doubles. Alex Phillips also had three hits and L.A. Woodard two.
KCKCC started its comeback in the first, scoring once on back-to-back singles by Pittman, Phillips and Corey Combs and then added three more with two out in the second. The first of Redick’s three doubles, a walk and a Woodard single scored one run and Pittman tripled in two more.
The Blue Devils closed to 7-6 with two runs in the third, A single by Easton Fortuna, Redick’s second double and an error kayoed Garden City starter Kendrick Catron and Brandon Green greeted reliever Mitchell Savine with an RBI single.
But that’s all the Blue Devils could muster against Burns, who got out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth with a ground ball and deep fly to left and then got a double play ball after singles by Woodard and Phillips in the eighth.
The Blue Devils (39-19) got a standout relief effort from Corey Cowan, who allowed just one hit in four scoreless innings. Stevens took the loss, allowing nine hits and nine runs including a solo home run by Alex Eskridge in the fourth. He struck out seven and walked two.