by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
The games just keep getting bigger for Kansas City Kanas Community College’s baseball team.
Held to a split by Allen County Saturday, the Blue Devils have just two four-game series remaining to lock up a home playoff berth and possibly a Jayhawk East championship.
The Blue Devils took a 9-5 opening game win over Allen County only to have the Red Devils rebound for a 6-3 win in the nightcap. The split left the Blue Devils (19-9) in second place and three games back of Neosho County (22-6). However, Neosho and KCKCC will collide in a season-ending four-game series April 28 and 30.
But the split also dropped the Blue Devils’ second place lead over Johnson County and Cowley College to one game (both 18-10) and kept them two games in front of Allen County (17-11) in the heated race for home playoff berths. The top four teams in the East will host the fifth through eighth place finishers in the West in first round playoff action May 7-8.
At Rockhurst tonight, KCKCC (31-14) will resume Jayhawk play Thursday when the Blue Devils are the hosts to Fort Scott (15-13), which fell to sixth place when swept by Neosho County 5-1 and 16-10 Saturday.
Ryan Fisher and Malone Smith each drove in three runs to lead KCKCC to its 9-5 win over Allen in Saturday’s first game as the Blue Devils built a 7-1 lead in the first two innings. Fisher had the big hit in a 3-run first, a two-run single after the Blue Devils had loaded the bases. Smith scored the third run with a sacrifice fly.
KCKCC added four more runs in the fourth. After a leadoff walk, Conor Behrens tripled in a run, Fisher double in another and Smith delivered a big two-out, two-run single.
After Allen closed to 7-3 in the fifth, the Blue Devils added two insurance runs in the sixth on singles by Eli Lovell and Fisher, a sacrifice fly by Drew Holtgrieve and Albert Woodard’s squeeze bunt. Jake Purl went the distance to run his record to 7-1, allowing nine hits and five runs. He struck out four and walked two.
The Blue Devils, however, managed only six hits in the 9-inning nightcap including three in the first, singles by Chase Redick, Behrens and Lovell for a 1-0.
Behrens also doubled to lead off the third inning and scored on a Lovell sacrifice fly and then belted his eighth home run of the season in the fifth for the other two KCKCC runs off Chase Gooding, who struck out seven in seven innings. Vestal Tanner (3-3) was tagged with the loss, allowing eight hits and five runs before Avery Fliger pitched the final 5.1 innings, allowing just three hits and one run while striking out three.