Morgan Homers Twice to Lead Saints to Split with Conqs

Liberal, Kansas – A battle between two Jayhawk rivals in conference action led to a doubleheader split between the Lady Saint and Conqs in Dodge City as Seward County dropped game one after giving up eight runs in two innings but some big-time hits in game two led by a home run from Alyssa Morgan led to a 12-4 win to head back to Liberal, Kansas with a split.

Morgan was able to help lead the Lady Saints to a hot start in game one with a hard hitting single to left field that drove in the first run of the day for Seward County to take the lead in the first while Brooklyn Castagnetta capitalized on a Dodge City error to make it 2-0 in the second. After a rotation through the lineup, Castagnetta stepped back to the plate and doubled on a line drive that brought three Lady Saints around the bases to extend the lead to 5-0 over the Conqs through just three innings. Back-to-back home run bombs from Morgan and Anberlin O'Dell grew the lead out to 7-0 entering the bottom of the fourth where Dodge City closed in on Seward County with three runs to trim the gap to four at 7-3. A five-run inning in the fifth for the Conqs put the Lady Saints behind for the first time in the game 8-7 before some clutch hits in the sixth allowed Seward County to retake the lead 9-8. A sacrifice fly out to center field from Dodge City tied the score back up and a score off a passed ball made it 10-9 entering the seventh where despite the Lady Saints getting runners in scoring position, they could not answer back as they fell 10-9 in the first game of the day.

It was deja vu in the start of game two as Morgan put Seward County on the board first the same way she did in game one with a single that drove in Aaliyah Gutierrez to put the Lady Saints up first 1-0. A four-run inning in the bottom of the first made it 4-1 Dodge City and put Seward County's backs against the wall. Luckily the one constant at the plate all day had been their freshman infielder in Morgan who stepped up and knocked out another home run to ignite the spark for the Lady Saints as Raeana Ortiz and Castagnetta followed with two doubles to propel Seward County back in front 5-4. Noemi Tudon snuck her way to home to extend the lead to three in the fifth while another hard hitting double from Ortiz drove in another three scores to make it 12-4 to force the run rule over the Conqs and grab a win in game two.

After splitting on the day the Lady Saints now find themselves with a 14-12 overall record while moving to 10-4 in conference action. Seward County will wrap up their first half of conference action of the 2024 season when they face the nationally ranked #17 Butler Grizzlies in a doubleheader on Saturday with the first pitch taking place at 1:00 PM.