Broncbusters Use Long Ball to Beat Seward County

Garden City, KS–In a game where pitchers were grinding it out on short rest, it was the Broncbusters who looked like the fresher team.  Garden City bashed out five homers over the two games, including a pair of grand slams to win 4-2 in game one and 25-2 in game two over Seward County.

 Game One Highlights

In the first game Garden City took a 1-0 lead in the first on back to back two out doubles from Alex Nielsen and Jesse Gonzales to make it 1-0 off Seward starter Jared Biddy (4-6).  Biddy would settle down and retired the next nine he faced following Clint Allen’s infield single in the first with two outs.

Ryder Yakel was also pitching on short rest for the Broncbusters and kept the shutout intact until the fourth when Alex Nielsen’s fielding error on a grounder to third scored the tying run in Addison Kaasch and Montana Newell’s single brought in Jacob Nielsen giving Seward their first lead at 2-1.

Rafael Villela scored the tying run for the Broncbusters in the fourth on a pair of passed balls charged to Saints catcher Law Greiner.  The inning ended with the Broncbusters leaving two runners on, but at least Garden had tied the game at 2-2.

In the seventh, after Nielsen drew a leadoff walk for Garden City and Gonzales grounded out to short, Clint Allen came up and drilled a two run homer to left on a 3-1 pitch.  The walkoff blast gave Garden City a 4-2 win and was their first home win in conference since defeating Barton on March 25th. 

The win also gave Garden their 30th victory of the year.  Biddy took the loss giving up four runs, three earned and striking out eight (six looking) while walking six.  Nick Ulmer (1-3) earned the win in relief for Garden going two innings and allowing one hit, while striking out one.

 Game two highlights

Game two saw power from the Broncbusters and it started with designated hitter Connor Reynolds who clubbed a two run homer to left by the scoreboard putting himself in a tie for the top spot in the Jayhawk for homers.  The blast off Seward County starter Ethan Earhart made it 2-0 Garden.

After Seward tied the game off Ray Monje in the top of the third, the Broncbusters added three in the bottom half on a Ty Barclay RBI double and two run single from Reynolds for his third and fourth RBI of the second game.

Garden City blew it open with a 10 run fourth inning, Gonzales, Allen and Barclay all had RBI singles off reliever Jordan Pepper.  Pepper and Jacob Nielsen both forced in runs with bases loaded walks and with the sacks full, Alex Nielsen hit a grand slam homer to left putting Garden up 15-2.

 The next inning Aeneas Roberson as part of a five run fifth also had a grand slam off Nick Johnston making it 20-2.  For the third time this year the Broncbusters had 20 scoring 21 in a win over Frank Phillips two weeks ago 21-9 and a 26-11 win in the finale of their series with Butler back in March. 

 The two wins also wraps up the fifth seed from the West for Garden City in next week’s region VI tournament which means the Broncbusters would travel the fourth seed from the east, most likely Neosho County.  There is still an outside shot for Garden to host, but the Broncbusters would have to sweep Seward Friday and Colby have to lose all four in their series with Dodge City.

Clint Allen also went yard on a solo homer for his second of the day and Nick Iossi worked the final five innings from the Garden City bullpen to capture his first collegiate win 25-2.

GCCC Head Coach Chris Finnegan Post-game

Garden City (31-22, 16-14) wraps up the regular season on Friday afternoon with a doubleheader beginning at 1 with Seward County (17-34, 10-20).  Pre-game is 12:45 on westernkansasnews.com and the KWKR stream.