Broncbusters Season Ends in 3-1 Loss to Johnson County

Wichita, KS (westernkansasnews.com) The Garden City Community College Baseball team played their hearts out all season and on the way they found a little magic too.  After all magic helped them overcome a 5-2 deficit to beat Seward County on Sunday 7-6.  Monday unfortunately the magic ran out.

Garden City held in there and challenged top seeded and fifteenth ranked Johnson County until the end, but fell 3-1 in a region VI elimination game from Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in Wichita.  The Broncbusters end the season 2-2 in the tournament and 38-23 overall.

Game Highlights

Tony Yacovetta (1-1) received the spot start for the Broncbuster and did well until Johnson County scored all three of their runs in the fourth.  The Cavaliers scored their first run on a RBI single from Ben Calvano and a two out, two run single by LJ Hatch.  The Garden City relief core took over in the fifth.  T.J. Clapper, Madison Spencer and Austin Aspegren allowed only one hit, walked three and struck out three the rest of the way keeping Johnson County’s offense in check the rest of the game.

Garden City finally crack through in the sixth off Cavaliers starter Justin Wyant (8-2).  The Broncbusters left both runners in scoring position back in the third when Rocky DeSantis grounded out.  DeSantis would scored what turned out to be GC’s only run on a single from Tyler Alitz.  Leftfielder Riley Landuyt unloaded a great throw that beat DeSantis to the plate.  Catcher John Fairchild laid on the tag, but on DeSantis’ slide dropped the ball.  Nolan Barrientos advanced to third.  With runners at the corners and one out Frankie Alvarez hit one back to the pitcher and Jaxon Mohr the man who delivered the game winning hit Sunday in the ninth flied out to center, ending the inning.

Garden City received a leadoff single in the eighth from DeSantis, but he was left stranded at third.  DeSantis finished the tournament 8 of 15 with a homer and 5RBI’s. Wyant worked into the ninth and finished one batter short of his second complete game of the year when he walked Dalton Cook.  On the day, Wyant gave up one run on four hits while walking six and striking out four. Hybrid starter/closer Derek Hurt came on for the final out of the game challenging Tyler Tucker on a high fastball and striking him out.

Coach Chris Finnegan post-game interview

Johnson County (47-12) moved on to another elimination game that followed against Cowley, while Garden City huddled up and said good-bye to teammates and friends that will move on after a 38-23 season which saw the Broncbusters won 18 of their last 22 games against Jayhawk opponents and were the last western division team remaining in the region VI tournament before losing to Johnson County on Monday.