Buffs Split Home Games with TMP

Garden City, KS (westernkansasnews.com) The Garden City High School Baseball Team (2-3) showed they could hit. They also showed some inconsistency in the field splitting a pair of games with Hays TMP (3-1) to start off the home schedule. Buffaloes won the 1st game 12-5 and lost the second 10-4.

In the first game the story was Buffaloes leftfielder Marcus Zapata who hit two homers. One a two run blast in the first inning and the other a solo homer in the sixth. Both homers cleared the rightfield wall at Clint Lightner Field. GC Coach Bill Wilson knows he has a special player.

Most importantly those homers sparked the offense for the rest of the inning. In the first, Zapata’s homer was followed by Mario Montonya’s RBI double and then a two run single from Daven Acker.

After scoring five in the first, TMP evened the score with a five run fourth inning, an error in left allowed two runs to score. Rightfielder Liam Stults added a two run double and Grant Romme tied it up with a RBI single.

Garden City fought back with a three run fourth to take an 8-5 lead on Ivan Gutierrez’s two run single and Emilio Parr’s RBI single. Zapata added insurance with his solo homer in the sixth to make it 9-5 and the next four reached successfully. All the runs scored with two outs capped off with Mario Montoya’s two run single.

Game two was a different story as Buffaloes starting pitcher Ivan Gutierrez was knocked out in the second inning. Daven Acker went the rest of the way giving up four runs, two earned in 5 1/3 innings of relief. TMP scored six in the second including a two run single from Jared Vitztum, run scoring single from Grant Romme and two run single from Cameron Brin. The Monarchs scored the first seven runs of the game and led 7-0.

The Buffaloes chipped away at the lead with a RBI single from Martin Terrazas and Jacob Rivas RBI double in the fourth inning. Mario Montoya added a two run single to center in the fifth, closing the Buffaloes deficit to 7-4. That would be the closest Garden City would get the rest of the night losing 10-4.

Game One Highlights