Tag: KCKCC softball

by Alan Hoskins

Elizabeth Seimears pitched her first shutout of the season to complete a Kansas City Kansas Community College sweep of Fort Scott Tuesday.

Seimears blanked the Greyhounds on two hits in a 5-inning 13-0 win after Leslie Ford had pitched the Lady Blue Devils to a 7-3 win in the opener.

The wins pushed KCKCC’s winning streak to six in a row heading into pivotal weekend Jayhawk Conference doubleheaders – at No. 6 ranked Cowley County (11-5) Friday and No. 9 Independence (12-6) Saturday. At 10-6 in the Jayhawk and 18-6 overall, the Blue Devils are in position to move past both teams with sweeps. Wiped out by rain Wednesday, KCKCC’s scheduled twin bill with Neosho County has not been rescheduled.

Seimears had a perfect game through four innings of the nightcap before giving up a pair of singles in the fifth. The Blue Devils backed her with 15 hits led by Mierra Morisette and Lacey Santiago. Morisette had two doubles and a triple and drove in four runs while Santiago tripled and singled twice and scored three times. Hanna Barnhart added a double and single and Ashley Henington two singles.

KCKCC scored two in the first on a single by Santiago, double by Morisette and single by Barnhart and added two more in the second on Morisette’s 2-run double following a walk and Justice Scales’ single. The Blue Devils wrapped up the win with nine runs on nine hits in the fourth as everyone in the lineup but one hit safely. Santiago and Morisette each had 2-run triples, Amanda Holroyd and Barnhart doubles and Henington, Ford, Megan Dike and Laura Vanderheiden had singles.

Leslie Ford gave up just one run the first six innings before giving up two runs on three hits in the seventh in the 7-3 opening win. Ford struck out eight and walked three while the Blue Devils did all their scoring in the first three innings.

A double by Scales and singles by Morisette and Holroyd gave KCKCC a 1-0 lead and the Blue Devils added six in the third, four of which were unearned due to two Fort Scott errors.

Scales started the uprising with a double and after a walk, hit batsman and two errors, Ford and Dike rapped singles and Vanderheiden lashed a 2-run double. Scales, Morisette, Holroyd and Vanderheiden each had a pair of hits in the win.

by Alan Hoskins

Sweeping a four-game non-conference series over the weekend highlighted by a no-hit pitching performance by Leslie Ford, Kansas City Kansas Community College returns to Jayhawk Conference play with four doubleheaders in five days.

Weather permitting, the Lady Blue Devils will play host to Fort Scott Tuesday and Barton County Wednesday and then play at Cowley Friday and Independence Saturday. All four twin bills will have 2 and 4 p.m. starts.

The Blue Devils got big hits at the most opportune times in defeating Maple Woods 5-0 and 4-3 Friday before routing a club team from the University of Kansas 8-0 and 11-3 Saturday. The sweep improved the Blue Devils overall record to 16-6.

Ford got two wins and a save in the four games. After blanking Maple Woods 5-0 in Friday’s opener, Ford got the save with one inning of one-hit relief in the 4-3 nightcap, then came back with a 5-inning no-hitter over KU in Saturday’s 8-0 opening win. She struck out six and had a perfect game until walking the leadoff hitter in the fifth.

Ford also delivered one of the two biggest hits in the 5-0 win over Maple Woods, a two-run double following singles by Amanda Holroyd and Hanna Barnhart in the second inning. The other big hit came in the fourth, a two-out bases-loaded triple by Justice Scales after a single by Laura Vanderheiden and two errors had loaded the bases. Scales and Barnhart each had two hits in the win.

Vanderheiden and Ashley Henington delivered the big blows in the 4-3 nightcap win. Vanderheiden lashed a 3-run triple run in the second after KCKCC had loaded the bases on three walks. Maple Woods had taken a 2-0 lead, scoring runs in each of the first two innings and then tying the game on a double and two singles in the third. Henington provided her own support for the pitching win by breaking the 3-3 tie with a two-out RBI double in the bottom of the sixth. Henington gave up one hit and struck out one in two innings in relief of starter Elizabeth Seimears.

The Blue Devils lashed out 10 hits in the 8-0 win over KU. Holroyd led with three singles while Lacey Santiago added two hits. Mierra Morisette’s 2-run triple following a leadoff single by Santiago and a double by Scales highlighted a 4-run first inning.

KCKCC added 17 more hits in the 11-3 5-inning nightcap. Morisette and Santiago each had four hits while Scales and Holroyd each drove in three runs with a double and single. Vanderheiden also had had two hits while Ford doubled and drove in two runs. Henington pitched the first two innings, allowing three hits and no earned runs while Seimears pitched the last three, allowing just a pair of hits and striking out six.

 by Alan Hoskins

Kansas City Kansas Community College rapped out 48 hits in four games over the weekend but still had to settle for splits in doubleheaders with Jayhawk Conference rivals Pratt and Dodge City.

The Lady Blue Devils won the opener in both doubleheaders, defeating Pratt 6-1 and Dodge City 5-3 before losing to Pratt 5-4 and Dodge City 6-2.

The splits left the Blue Devils 8-6 in conference play and 12-6 overall heading into a doubleheader at first place Highland (15-1) Tuesday.

KCKCC then returns home to play host to Maple Woods Friday at 2 and 4 p.m. and a University of Kansas club team Saturday at 1-3 p.m.

Freshman centerfielder Justice Scales led the offense, collecting two hits in each game and driving in four runs while third baseman Lacey Santiago and leftfielder Mierra Morisette each had seven hits.

Leslie Ford, the winning pitcher in both games, helped her own cause with six hits while Amanda Holroyd and Hanna Barnhart each had five.

Ford allowed just four hits, struck out eight and no earned runs in the 6-1 win over Pratt.

Trailing 1-0 in the second, KCKCC scored twice on back-to-back doubles by Morisette and Ashley Henington and an RBI single by Ford and then made it 4-1 in the fourth on a run-scoring double by Laura Vanderheiden and an RBI triple by Scales following Megan Dike’s leadoff single.

The final two runs scored in the sixth following leadoff singles by Ford and Vanderheiden.

Pratt broke a 4-4 deadlock in the top of the seventh of the nightcap, scoring on three singles against Ford, who allowed just four hits and the one run while fanning five in 3.2 innings of relief.

KCKCC took a 3-1 lead, scoring twice in the first on singles by Santiago, Scales and Barnhart and once in the second on Santiago’s two-out hit.

Pratt went ahead 4-3 in the fourth but KCKCC tied it on another Santiago hit following a leadoff single by Ford.

The Blue Devils backed Ford’s 7-hit pitching with 16 hits in the 5-3 win over Dodge City as Santiago and Morisette each had three and Scales, Ford and Megan Dike two each.

KCKCC took a 2-0 lead in the first on singles by Santiago and Morisette, Holroyd’s sacrifice fly and Barnhart’s double and added two more in the second on Scales’ two-out single following hits by Ford and Dike.

A two-run home run in the sixth inning by Amanda Holroyd was the lone highlight in the 6-2 loss to Dodge City. Elizabeth Seimears took the loss, giving up 12 hits.

“Elizabeth pitched well enough to win but our defense gave them a couple of runs,” said KCKCC coach Kacy Tillery. “But we continue to swing the bats with Santiago and Scales at the top of the order and Morisette, Holroyd and Barnhart in the middle.”