GCHS Baseball Shows Vast Improvement in Sweep of Word of Life
In sharp contrast of the their losses earlier in the week on the road at Wichita Heights, the Garden City Buffalo Baseball team made it a clean sweep over the undefeated Word of Life club from Wichita on Saturday the final day of March, winning 12-2 in game one and 5-1 in the nightcap. It was the home opener for the Buffaloes on the 2012 season, which was delayed a week because of the wet field conditions from some welcomed rain in the Southwest Kansas. After a good three days of practice working on the fundamental things they needed to improve on, the Buffaloes put it all together at Clint Lightner Field for two great victories over the previously undefeated 8-0 Word of Life Fire. In game one the Buffaloes jumped out
on top in the bottom of the first with lead off batter junior left fielder Levi Richardson blasting a double into left center and was brought home crossing the plate for the first of his four times in game, after the RBI double by sophomore catcher Thomas Solario giving the Buffaloes a 1-0 lead. Garden City would add four more runs in the bottom of the 3rd on three hits from Solario, senior pitcher Jake Curran and right fielder Austin Maier to give the Buffs a 5-1 advantage. Word of Life would score two runs in the top of the 4th to make it 5-2, but from that point it was all Garden City as they would add three more runs in the bottom of the 4th, two more in the 5th and close it with two final runs in the bottom of the 6th to give the Buffaloes a 12-2 run
rule win in six innings. Jake Curran collected the win going the full distance, striking out 8 and walking four batters. Here is a look at the line scrores for the Garden City it was 12-12-2 with 12 runners stranded, for the Fire, it was 2-3-3 and five runners left on base. In the nightcap, it was a stellar pitching performance for junior Brady Bean, as he kept the Word of Life batters off balance all night, striking out three, walking two for the victory. The Buffalo bats struggled in this one against one of the toughest pitchers they will likley face all year in senior Anthony Perez for the Fire from Venezeula, who struck out 8 and walked two in the loss. Garden City did collect
hits from Logan Dechant, Austin Maier and Jake Curran propelling the Buffaloes to the win after getting runs in the 2nd, 4th and 6th innings collecting the 5-1 victory. Coach Bill Wilson was extremely pleased with his teams performance all the way up and down the line-up as the executed the game plan and played within themselves with a lot of discipline, but their positive enthusiasm was contagious. Garden City moves to 2-2 on the season with the sweep and the Word of Life Fire drops to 8-2. Up next for the Buffaloes is TMP-Hays on Tuesday, be sure to catch all the action for the 4:00 and 6:00 PM games, on the Live Video Webcast atwww.westernkansasnews.com, starting with the 3:45 pre-game show with Jerry Jones and Videographer Donette Brown. (photo’s and videography by Donette Brown/WKBC staff)
