Broncbusters End Regular Season With Split; Set Eyes on Regionals
Garden City, KS (westernkansasnews.com) The Garden City Community College Baseball team is turning a negative into a positive. Yes they did not secure the west second seed in the upcoming regional tournament after losing game one Monday to Pratt 5-3, but on the brighter side for the first time this season they won a home series in conference taking the finale 17-3.
Game One Highlights
In game one, Pratt used the power of Glen DesBouillons to spoil the Broncbuster’s chances at a higher seed in the regional tournament. DesBouillons homered twice, his third and fourth blasts of the season. The two run shot off Garden City starter Tyler Franek gave the Beavers a 2-0 lead and a solo homer in the sixth stretch the lead to 5-0.
Third baseman Reece Garvie also added two more RBI’s for Pratt with a run scoring single in the third inning and RBI double in the fifth.
The Broncbusters kept hitting into double plays early. Garden ended the first and second on double plays and Alex Nielsen hit a comebacker which deflected off Pratt starting pitcher Cody Ebert’s glove (2-7) and was picked up by DesBouillons who made a tagout of the runner C.J. Krainock and threw to first for the Beaver’s third double play.
Ebert came into the game 1-7 on the season with his only win coming against Butler, but he went through six innings Monday scattering only five hits and walking two.
Garden City attempted their comeback in the final inning the seventh capitalizing on two errors, a RBI single from Krainock, wild pitch to bring in the second run and RBI groundout from Nielsen for the third. With a runner on third and two outs, Ebert induced Garden centerfielder Aeneas Roberson to fly out to center. For Ebert it was his first complete game of the year.
Game Two Highlights
Game two Garden City came out agressive against righthanded pitcher Nate McBroom (6-3). Mason Brown brought in his tenth run of the series with a double bringing in one, but the relay cut down Kyle Lopez attempting to score. A fielding error at first brought in a second run. Connor Reynolds then followed with a RBI triple and Jesse Gonzales with a RBI single wrapping up a four run first.
The Broncbusters had four triples in game two, Nielsen provided two of them with a triple to lead off the second and two run triple in the third.
Kyle Lopez who had a eight game hitting streak snapped in game two Sunday, brought in two runs with a double off Pratt reliever Hayden Brauser as part of a five run fifth inning to pull away 13-1. Ray Monje finished off the game in a non-save situation and coughed up two runs in the final inning the seventh as Garden run ruled Pratt 17-3.
Brendan Peitsmeyer winless over his last four starts notched his eighth win of the year improving to 8-1 and reclaiming the team lead in wins from Noah Draper (7-1) who won his start in game one Saturday pitching a two hit shutout. Petismeyer went six innings and allowed one run on six hits.
Post-game Comments Garden City Head Coach Chris Finnegan
With the win Garden City finishes two games behind division leading Colby in the Jayhawk West and one game behind Hutch for second. The Broncbusters as the sixth overall seed in the region six tournament will face 11th seeded Fort Scott Saturday in the best of three opening round series.
The winner is one of eight teams to play in the field at Wichita’s Lawrence Dumont Stadium with a berth in the Junior College World Series from Grand Junction on the line.
Time of Saturday’s Garden City-Fort Scott games are to be announced. The contests will be broadcasts on ESPN 99.9 and westernkansasnews.com.
