Buffaloes Baseball Splits with Junction City

Garden City, KS (westernkansasnews.com) On a week where the weather is suppose to be rainy, it was a terrific Monday to begin the high school baseball season. Garden City’s bats started out well and could not take advantage of several opportunities in game two and split their doubleheader with Junction City 6-3 and 3-0.

Game One Highlights

The Buffaloes had the first five batters reach base. Raymond Urrutia laced a two run single to leftfield off Blue Jays starter Ty Clark making it a 2-0 game. Cooper Thayer followed with a RBI single one batter later and the inning wrapped up with Easton Lager’s infield single to give Garden a 4-0 lead through one inning.

Easton Rindt and Tim Bell answered for the Blue Jays with back-to-back doubles. Bell’s two base hit gave Junction City their first run and he would score later when Thane McDaniel bunted him in from third base.

Eric Heimann worked 4 2/3 innings for the Buffaloes in getting the win. Thayer added a RBI double off Ty Clark in the second inning making it 5-2 Garden. Two straight singles to begin the top of the fourth set up McDaniel’s RBI single for the Blue Jays scoring courtesy runner Patrick Addison.

An unearned run in the fifth on a throwing error by Blue Jays shortstop Charlie Peyla capped off the scoring bringing in Eric Heimann. Heimann allowed four hits and three runs, two earned while striking out five and walking two in winning his first start of 2017. Carson Scheeter threw the final 2 1/3 innings for the save.

Game Two Highlights

After the second inning of game two, Garden City was held to one unearned run over eleven innings and without a run in game two. The Buffaloes had their opportunities in game two off Junction starting pitcher Tim Bell.

The best chances to ding the scoreboard were in the third and fourth innings. Griff Brunson led off with a triple in the third inning, but a David Artega bunt did not drive in Brunson and that followed an Aric Rowland pop out to short and fly out to center by Urrutia.

The following inning in the fourth, Andrew Krutzer’s infield single and walk to Isaiah Ramos put two on with two out. A wild pitch from Tim Bell followed and the threat ended with Eaton Lager striking out.

While Garden City was limited to just two hits in game two, Junction did not do much better offensively. Getting the first two on against Buffaloes starter Copper Thayer, Thane Daniel had a sac bunt advancing both runners into scoring position. David Artega had a throwing error that resulted in Blue Jay first baseman Nate Johnson to score and Jo Jo Nieves brought in the second run with a sac bunt.

Bell added a RBI single in the seventh bringing it to a 3-0 final. Bell worked five innings and only allowed two hits for the Blue Jays. Thayer went 6 2/3 innings while coughing up three runs, two earned and seven hits. He retired nine in a row until Nick Dombrowski’s lead off single in the seventh.

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