Saints Baseball Struggles in Start to Barton Series

Liberal, Kansas – Seward County struggled on Thursday afternoon as they began their series against the Barton Cougars with back-to-back run rule losses as the Saints went through their bull pen to try and find the right pitcher, but the Cougars found ways to score no matter what SCCC threw at them.

Barton started game one on fire with a home run bomb with their first at bat that led to a 2-0 start in the first inning for the Cougars which Cameron Cartwright was able to cut it in half with a double on a fly ball to drive in Nathan Hopkins and make the score 2-1. After that it was all Barton as they scored seven runs in the second and over the next few innings their lead grew out to 13-1. A big home run bomb from Todd Baffa allowed the Saints to get back on the board with a few more runs and make the score 13-4 but a final run from Barton in the fifth forced the mercy rule in five innings 14-4 and put Seward County behind in the series 0-1.

Saints fell hard early to start the second game of the day as they gave up eight runs in the top of the first and it was all over from their for Seward County. Mason Hagel-Pitt singled on a hard ground ball that drove Hopkins in for their first run while a double on a fly ball by Brock Sundlie made it 8-2. The Cougars continued to pile it on moving ahead to as much as 15-2 to put the score into run rule territory and even though the Saints added another couple of scores to their total, they eventually fell again 18-5 in seven innings.

Seward County will have to bounce back strong in the second half of their four-game series with Barton after now falling to 16-17 on the 2024 season and a 4-6 record in conference action. They will meet up with the Cougars back in Great Bend to continue the series this Saturday with game one beginning at 1:00 PM.