One Up and One Down for Saints Baseball

It was a tale of two games for the Seward County Saints Tuesday afternoon at Brent Gould Field against Dodge City as the Saints and Conqs wrapped up their Jayhawk West Conference series that started way back on February 25th in Dodge City. In game one the Saints jumped out to a 4-0 lead but couldn’t score again as Dodge roared back to take the win 7-4. In game two, it was a consistent effort from Seward with the bats as the Saints scored in six of the eight innings in a 12-2 run rule win to split the doubleheader.

In game one of the twinbill, the Saints got off to a big start. After two quick outs in the bottom half of the 1st, Brent Williams teed off on the first pitch he saw for a solo home run into the trees past the left-center field wall to give Seward a 1-0 lead. The key play of the inning though came with next hitter when a dropped third strike extended the Saints chances and they took full advantage, scoring three more times in the frame, including RBI knocks from Dillon Drury and Chad Kennedy to open their lead up to 4-0.

In his first career start for the Saints, freshman Nathan Dockery cruised through four innings of work, but the Seward offense went cold all of a sudden and their lead remained at 4-0 into the 5th.

Dockery hit a wall in the 5th however, watching the first three hitters of the inning reach base, plating one run to make it a 4-1 game and then a Dodge City two run double end his day with the score 4-3. The Saints bullpen didn’t offer much relief. Chris Juracek faced just two batters, both of them reaching before he was lifted and Thomas Garland was greeted into the game with a two run single to give the Conqs the lead 5-4. Garland eventually worked out of further trouble, but the damage was already done and the Saints were now in the hole 5-4.

The Saints couldn’t do anything with a leadoff single in the 5th, striking out twice to end the inning and Dodge added to their lead in the top half of the 6th, getting an unearned run off of a pair of Saints errors to make it a 6-4 game.

The Conqs added another unearned tally in the top of the 7th and the Saints went down quietly in their final at bats in the bottom half of the frame, striking out two more times to go down 7-4.

After a four run first, the Saints went ice cold, recording just four hits against Dodge reliever Layne Downing to finish the game with 8 hits. Dodge hammered out 12 hits against three Seward pitchers in the win. Chad Kennedy led the Saints, going 2 for 3 with a double, a triple, and 2 RBI’s in the loss. Juracek took the loss on the mound, allowing a run on 1 hit and 1 walk without recording an out to fall to 1-3 on the season.

SEWARD COUNTY/DODGE CITY GAME THREE BOX SCORE<http://www.sewardsaints.com/sports/bsb/2014-15/boxscores/20150310_n2jn.xml>

The Saints got off to another big start in game two of the doubleheader, but this time they were able to continue their momentum throughout the game.

Seward scored twice in the 1st inning, using a leadoff triple from Alex White, a double from Justin Graff-Rowe and a bullet single by Williams to jump ahead 2-0 to begin the game.

The teams traded 2nd inning runs, Seward getting theirs following a leadoff double from Tony Dorado to start the ball rolling to make it a 3-1 game.

Dodge got another tally in the 3rd, but the Saints answered with two of their own, using a groundout and an RBI pinch hit single from Nic Ricigliano to put Seward on top 5-2.

Seward continued to batter the Conq bullpen, scoring twice more in the 4th to take a 7-2 lead and a gap splitting triple from Graff-Rowe in the 5th all but finished Dodge City off, giving the Saints a 9-2 advantage.

Saints starter Justin Hernandez finished his first career start strong, pitching Seward through the 6th inning with the 9-2 lead before handing it to Grant Glaze who worked a scoreless 7th and JB Olson who put up a goose egg in the 8th to hold the 9-2 lead.

Seward added their 10th run on a RBI double from Logan Nethercot in the 8th and a wild pitch put them up 11-2. With the run rule walkoff run at third base, Jared Ledbetter hit a line drive to left for a double to score Nethercot and give Seward the 12-2 victory to split the doubleheader.

Seward pounded out 20 hits in game two as every Saints starter had at least one hit and six different players had multi-hit games. Graff-Rowe broke out of a mini-slump in a big way, going 3 for 5 with 3 RBI’s missing the cycle by just a home run in the win. Williams, Rix, and Ledbetter also had 3 hit games for the Saints in the victory. Hernandez pitched well, going 6 solid innings for Seward, allowing 6 hits and 2 runs while striking out 3 to earn his first collegiate victory. Glaze and Olson closed the game with two scoreless innings of relief to wrap up the win.

SEWARD COUNTY/DODGE CITY GAME FOUR BOX SCORE<http://www.sewardsaints.com/sports/bsb/2014-15/boxscores/20150310_euba.xml>

The Saints are now 7-12 overall on the year and 3-5 in Jayhawk West play after two weeks while Dodge City is 12-4 overall and is 5-3 in conference action.

Next up for Seward is a weekend showdown with Jayhawk West rival Hutchinson. The Saints and Dragons will go head to head Saturday and Sunday, starting at 1:00 both days.

Roy Allen