Four Homers Not Enough as Seward Swept by Barton

A pair of wins over Kansas Wesleyan's JV squad on Tuesday wasn't enough to get the Seward County Lady Saints out of their early season rut as Wednesday Seward was swept by the Barton Cougars by scores of 7-3 and 11-6, marking the first time they have been on the wrong end of a sweep by the Cougars in the series since the 2002 season. 

Seward played from behind right from the start in game one as Barton put up a pair of runs in the bottom half of the 1^st inning to immediately take a 2-0 lead. 

The Lady Saints got on the board for the first time in the game in the 3^rd when Brittany Corrales flew a solo shot over the left field fence to cut the Barton lead to 2-1. 

Just as soon as Seward inched closer, the Cougars created more separation, scoring three times in the bottom half of the 3^rd to push their lead back to 5-1. 

To lead off the Lady Saints 4^th, Venice Batts crushed a solo home run well over the fence in left, but that was all Seward got in the inning as they remained behind 5-2. 

Hanah Lopez launched Seward's third solo home run of the game to begin the Lady Saint 6^th, but again, they couldn't string anything else together in the frame as they crawled back to within two of the Cougars at 5-3. 

Barton added a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the 6^th, but they wouldn't need them as Seward managed just an infield single in their final at bats in the 7^th as the Cougars held on to win 7-3. 

The Lady Saints had 8 hits in the loss, 3 at the top of the lineup from Jaidyn Mawhinney and 2 each, including home runs for both Batts and Lopez.  Kelly Kearney took the loss on the rubber for Seward, allowing 9 hits and 7 runs in 6 innings of work, she walked 6 and struck out just 1 Barton hitter. 

SEWARD COUNTY/BARTON GAME ONE BOX SCORE

It was Seward County getting on the board first in game two as Kristyna Garcia drove home a run with a groundout in the 1^st and Kennedy Brunson split the gap with an RBI double in the 2^nd to quickly put the Lady Saints up 2-0. 

The Cougars answered with a run of their own in the bottom of the 2^nd and put up three more in the 3^rd to quickly turn the game around, putting themselves in front 4-2. 

After a 1-2-3 top half of the 4^th for the Lady Saints, Barton was back at it, scoring four times on four hits in the Cougar half of the inning, blowing their lead open to 8-2 after four complete. 

The Lady Saints kept fighting though, using a big two out rally in the 5^th to score three times, two coming on an RBI single up the middle from Callie Silvers-Harnly to cut the Barton lead to 8-5. 

As soon as they got back in it, the Cougars cushioned their lead once again though as in the bottom of the 6^th, Barton scored three times, pushing their lead to 11-5 as the teams headed to the final inning of action. 

In their final at bats in the 7^th, Seward got their fourth solo home run of the day, this one off the bat of Garcia, but it was not nearly enough as Barton closed them out with an 11-6 win to pick up their first double header sweep over the Lady Saints since the 2002 season. 

Seward was outhit in the game 15-6, benefitting greatly from 4 Cougar errors in the game.  Garcia led Seward in the middle of the order, going 2 for 4 with 2 RBI's and 2 runs scored in the loss.  Mawhinney took the loss in the circle, allowing 7 runs on 10 hits in 3 2/3 innings to fall to 2-7 on the year. 

SEWARD COUNTY/BARTON GAME TWO BOX SCORE

The Lady Saints fall to 7-17 overall and 0-4 in Jayhawk West play with the losses while Barton continues a monster start to their 2016 campaign, improving to 26-2 overall and 3-1 in conference play with the sweep.

Seward will look to get things going back in the right direction on Friday when they host North Dakota's Williston State at Lady Saints Field at 2:00 before making their annual Spring Break trip to Arizona next week.