Garden Ends Regular Season on High Note; Sweeps Seward

Garden City, KS (westernkansasnews.com–Staying ahead of the wintry mix of weather expected over the weekend Garden City (33-22, 18-14) wrapped up their four game series with Seward County (17-36, 10-22) concluding a four game sweep with a 2-0 shutout and winning the second game 10-7. 

The Broncbusters end the regular season having won seven of their last eight conference games.  Now the waiting game begins to see where they go to play the first round of the region VI tournament.

First game highlights

Kendrick Catron (4-4) pitched his second straight complete game and earned Garden City’s second shutout of the year in a 2-0 win.  Catron allowed five hits, no walks and struck out five.  Only three Seward County runners reached second on the day and none made it to third.

The Broncbusters put up just enough runs to support Catron getting Connor Reynolds second home run of the series.  The solo blast made it 1-0 off Brian Tims in the third inning.  First baseman Jesse Gonzales chimed in with an RBI double inside the first base bag one inning later and that was enough for Garden in the 2-0 win, a day after winning game two of the series 25-2.

 Game two highlights

Game two saw Seward grabbed just their second lead in the second inning with a RBI groundout from catcher Trent Powell and fielding error from GCCC second baseman Alex Eskridge to score Addison Kaasch off Garden City starter Quinton Bonnell.

Rafael Villela tied it up in the bottom of the third with a two run single coming off Seward starting pitcher Jonathan Castillo (2-7).  Garden took the lead for good in the fourth with a wild pitch scoring Eskridge and sac-fly from Alex Nielsen. 

After Saints catcher Trent Powell added his second RBI of the day on a sixth inning single off Dillan Feurestein, Garden put up five runs helped out by four Seward County errors.  The Saints who have struggled with their defense all year had their worst inning of the weekend.  As part of the inning the Broncbusters showed their aggressive nature on the base paths and on Reynolds drive to the wall in left which was bobbled and caught by Seward’s Tim Fitgerald both Gonzales and Villela scored on a single sac-fly. 

Brian Tims trimmed Garden City’s lead to 9-5 in the seventh inning with a two run single off Feurestein.  After a sac-fly from Ty Lightley in the eighth gave the Broncbusters a 10-5 lead, Seward cameback with two runs on a wild pitch from Michael Dzjurgot and Tims RBI groundout, his third run driven in of the game before Dzjurgot had back-to-back strikeouts to end the game.

Post-game GCCC Head Coach Chris Finnegan

Garden City will likely play at Neosho County or Kansas City, Kansas in the first round of the Region VI tournament beginning on Friday.  There is still an outside shot Garden could host instead of be on the road, but they would have to hope Dodge City sweeps Colby and that series does not get underway until Monday and the four game set will not wrap up until Tuesday.