Seward County Drops Heartbreaker in Sweep to Hutchinson

Liberal, Kansas – Seward County baseball hit the road on Thursday towards Hutchinson where they began another high-level Jayhawk series against the Blue Dragons where despite falling in a run rule loss in game one 12-2 in five innings, the Saints remained strong in game two with a lead entering the ninth but fell in heartbreaking fashion 4-3 to fall behind 0-2 in the series.

Seward County fell behind early as the Blue Dragons pulled ahead early with a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first that by the fourth had grown to a 5-0 advantage over the Saints. A sacrifice fly from Mason Gilbert allowed Kelvin Juarez to make his way home to put SCCC on the board while a single by Connor Raney out to third base drove in Kotaro Wakui to slash Hutchinson's lead down to three at 5-2. The Saints' efforts could not extinguish the Blue Dragons flame however as Hutch went on to score seven runs over the next two innings to force a run rule win at 12-2 as Seward County fell behind in the series by one.

It took all nine innings in game two to get a result as Tyler Wilcox allowed only one run for the Blue Dragons in the first seven innings while Todd Baffa helped the Saints tie it up with a single to right field to drive in Gilbert to make it 1-1 in the sixth. Another two quick scores for Seward County gave the Saints a two-run lead over the Blue Dragons with Elias Herrera entering in off the bullpen in the eighth and struck out two batters to head into the final inning ahead 3-2. SCCC looked like they might be able to pull off the upset, but Hutchinson bounced back with a big hit in the bottom of the ninth for a walk-off single to take game two 4-3 over the Saints.

Seward County now drops to 18-19 overall on the 2024 with a conference record of 6-8 as they return home to Liberal as they prepare for the final two games of the series on Saturday against Hutchinson with game one starting at 1:00 PM.