Demon baseball ends regular season with win

DODGE CITY, Kan. — The Dodge City High School baseball team ended the regular season with a key win over the Liberal Redskins, 10-3 on Thursday afternoon at Demon Field. Dodge City will end the regular season with a 12-8 record, while Liberal ends theirs at 11-9.

The Kansas State High School Activities Association has already seeded for regional play, so any games played after Tuesday at 11:59 PM won’t be counted towards the regional record. Dodge City will open regional play on Thursday in Lawrence, while Liberal will play Wednesday in Haysville.

Both teams came in to Thursday’s game with nothing to lose, as both teams were seeded for regionals, so this was just a game that basically didn’t count towards much. The only benefit of the game is if either of the two teams qualified for the state tournament, then this game would count towards the record for seeding.

Dodge City received great pitching to start the game from Erubial Duron. Duron gave the Red Demons two strong innings and punched out six batters. He would finish with just the two innings on the hill, as Demon coach Zach Shipley wanted to pitch by committee for the game and see how he liked using 3-4 different guys in the one game.

Omar DonJuan produced the first runs of the game with a 2-run single through the right side with two outs to put Dodge City up 2-0. The Red Demons would add one more run in that inning on a wild pitch and led 3-0 after one.

Dodge City tacked on one more run in the second and led 4-0 at that point. Everything was going in favor of Dodge City at that point. Liberal cut the Demon lead in half in the third inning.

Each team added one more run in the fifth inning and it was 5-3 going into the sixth and that’s when Dodge City broke the game open. The Red Demons scored five runs in the sixth inning thanks to a couple of big hits and help by the Redskins pitching staff. Liberal went through three pitchers in the sixth inning and couldn’t seem to find a way out of the inning.

After the Red Demons had a seven-run cushion, Adrian Mendoza made quick work of the Redskins in the seventh to secure the senior day win. Seniors Noah Sowers and DonJuan both had big days at the plate, as Sowers went 3-4 with three singles and DonJuan finished 2-3 with a double and 3 RBI. Damian Rodriguez also produced from the eight-hole, as he went 2-2 with a double.

Liberal – 002 010 0 — 3 6 1

Dodge City – 310 015 x — 10 12 1

W: Duron (3-0) L: Hyde (5-3)

Time: 1:58