GCHS baseball splits in Emporia; tennis third at regionals

Emporia, Kan (westernkansasnews.com)-With just two regular-season games remaining, Garden City Head Coach Bill Wilson is still fine tuning his lineup. Saturday showed mixed results. 

The Buffaloes were no hit by Andover in a 10-0 loss in game one on Friday. Garden City battled back on Saturday-holding off Windfield 16-15. 

“We don’t have a good enough pitching staff to blow leads,” Wilson said. “When we have a chance to finish, we have to do it right away.”

The finale showed a little perseverance as the Buffaloes dug themselves out of an early 3-0 hole. Griffin Brunson’s RBI double got Garden City on the board in the bottom of the second. The freshman would eventually come around to score on a passed ball before Daven Acker slapped a run-scoring single to tie it.

Mario Montoya gave Garden City (7-9) the lead for good in the third when he stroked an RBI single that scored Emilio Parr. That was part of a seven-run inning that saw Wilson’s squad send 12 guys to the dish. 

The lead ballooned to 14-3 before the Vikings started chipping away. Trailing by nine runs in the seventh-Wilson replaced, reliever Mitchell Hernandez with Brunson. The freshman allowed two runs, which came on Logan Mays blast that made it a one-run game. He regrouped after that to retire the side and end the game. 

Starter Ivan Gutierrez allowed five runs on five hits while striking out two in four innings of work. Hernandez yielded eight runs on seven hits in two and two thirds. 

Next up: Garden City vs. Word of Life-Tuesday, May 13-4 p.m. 

Tennis

Team scores: 1. Maize, 2. Hutch, 3. Garden City, 4. Haysville-Campus, 5. Dodge City, 6. Wichita Northwest, 7. Wichita North and Wichita South

Singles-Dozie Ekweairi (3-1; 3rd); Sebastian Kyaw (3-1; 5th)

Doubles-Victor/Neave (2-2; 6th); Depaz/Basilo (1-2)

The only ones who didn’t qualify were Jose Depaz and Joe Basillo

Next up: State Tournament at Riverside Tennis Club in Wichita-Friday, May 16 and Saturday, May 17