Garden City Baseball Splits Sunday; Still Take 3 of 4 From Butler

Garden City, KS (westernkansasnews.com) The only disappointing part of the weekend for the Garden City Community College Baseball team (22-17, 14-10) was saying goodbye to an eight game winning streak and seven straight in conference. Otherwise, pretty good weekend.

Butler Community College (21-16, 12-8) came into the weekend just two games behind Hutch for first place. The Grizzlies limped out in a logjam for the number two seed in the west. Garden City took three out of four in the series by splitting Sunday’s games winning the first one 4-0 and losing the second 9-1.

Chris Bonk provided the spark on the mound for GC in game one improving his record to 6-0 scattering three hits over six innings. Zac Barton and Kadin Hydrick added RBI singles in a three run fourth. Josh Thomas pitched the final inning in a non-save situation and only allowed a walk to preserve the 4-0 shutout for Garden City.

Game two Butler right handed starter Austin Dubsky (3-2) was in complete control. He stuck out nine and only allowed six hits over seven innings. Grizzlies leftfielder Logan Beard had three singles and three RBIs and Shane Bridges added a two run single in a three run fourth inning off Broncbuster starter Dalton Shalberg (2-3) as Butler cruised to a 9-1 win.

Saturday game one belonged to the Broncbusters. Shortstop Tyler Alitz had a pair of two run singles, one in the three run third and the other in the three run sixth. Leftfielder Kaleb Zimmer finished with three hits, three runs and had a RBI single in the sixth. JJ Benes (4-2) fell one inning short of getting his fourth complete game allowing just four hits and one run over six innings in a 10-1 win.

Game two the big inning help Garden City complete the sweep of Saturday’s doubleheader. Leading 3-1 Butler touched up Garden City starter Jake Eikleberry with a two run triple from Logan Beard. One batter later Butler’s Dalton Wheat lauched a two run homer off Madison Spencer over the rightfield wall giving Butler a 5-3 lead.

The Broncbuster did not let up. Trailing by two in the seventh Garden City sent 11 men to the plate and scored eight runs. All the runs came with two out. Tyler Tucker had a RBI triple his second triple of the game and scored the tying run on Kaleb Zimmer’s single. Brennan Walker left one batter later and was relieved by Jackson Rolfs. Rolfs gave up a two run double to Garden first baseman Nolan Barrientos and after two more reached catcher Frankie Alvarez connected on his 1st collegiate homer and ended the scoring in Garden City’s 11-6 win.

Garden City plays Bethany’s JV squad on Monday at Williams Stadium. The Broncbuster return to Jayhawk West play Saturday when they travel to Barton Community College for the beginning of a four game series.

Game One Saturday