Saints Blow Past Greyhounds in Game 1

FORT SCOTT, Kan. – A strong first inning set the tone for the opening game of the Region VI Tournament, as the Seward County baseball team shocked the No. 2 seeded Fort Scott Greyhounds 9-1 to win the first game of a best of three game series.

Tanner King started his first career playoff game to open up the first round, tossing a complete game in the win over the Greyhounds.  The freshman out of Canyon, Texas dealt a perfect game through 6.1 innings.  King struck out seven batters, while allowing just one run off four hits.

Seward came away with 12 hits on the day, led by Dylan Paul’s two-home run game.  Spencer Sackett, Cayde Ward, Jose Caraballo and Cole Bergdall each finished with multiple hits. Ward and Caraballo both hit bombs of their own.

The first two batters of the game got out for the Saints, but the Saints started a two-out rally starting with a first pitch bomb by Paul over the left field fence.  Ward matched Paul with a dinger of his own, sending it in the opposite direction.  After Kuhn get hit by a pitch, Caraballo finished the rally with a two-run home run to put the Saints up 4-0.

After two scoreless innings, the Saints got back to scoring in the top of the fourth.  After Ayala led off getting hit by a pitch, Bergdall pushed him to third with a single to center field.  Shope pushed the first run of the inning with a single through the left side.  With aggressive base running, Bergdall went from first to third to set up Madsen to push him in to make it 6-0. The Saints still had more scoring to do in the inning. Sackett reached on a single to left field before Paul blasted his second home run of the day, this time a mammoth shot to right field to push it to 8-0.

Two leadoff singles in the top of the fifth forced the Greyhounds to go to their bullpen.  The new pitcher forced two deep fly outs, but the Saints managed to score one more run to make push their lead to nine runs.

It took until the sixth inning for the Greyhounds to manage a base runner as the freshman King dealt a perfect game through 6.1 innings of the ball game. Two singles up the middle ended the perfect game bid, but King got out of the inning without allowing a run.

Cole Solomon put the Greyhounds on the board with a solo shot to right field in the bottom of the 7^th, but that would be all they could manage against King.

Seward now owns a 1-0 lead in the best of three series against Fort Scott.  Game two will be tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. at Lions Field in Fort Scott, Kansas.  The game can be heard on 1270 AM with Brock Kappelmann (pxp) on the call.