Big Hit Brock Helps Liberal’s Marathon Men to Victory

One week after a 14 inning loss to Haysville, the Liberal Bee Jays won a 15 inning game 10-9 over the Dodge City A’s at Brent Gould Field on Saturday night. Brock Burton singled home the winning run with two outs in the 15th.  The game lasted over five hours and actually ended shortly past midnight Sunday morning.  The Bee Jays trailed 9-3 going to the bottom of the ninth before rallying to win.

The A’s got off to a great start and the Bee Jays showed rust much of the night.  Dodge City scored four in the first and three in the second against starter David Moffat who lasted just 1 and 2/3.  Liberal finally scored in the bottom of the fifth when RJ Pearson hit a sac fly to score RJ Pearson.  Liberal crept closer in the seventh when Justin Marino singled home two runs to make it 7-3.  The BJ’s had two errors in the ninth allowing the A’s to score two runs to lead 9-3.  Jack Krauel doubled to lead off the ninth.  He would score on a wild throw at third.  After a walk and two errors, Dane Simon’s sac fly made it 9-5.  Brock Burton made things interesting when he whistled a double to left center to score two and make it 9-7.  Chase Hacker’s single over the second baseman’s head made it 9-8.  With two outs, Krauel singled over the shortstops head to tie the game for arguably the most clutch BJ hit of the season.  The BJ’s had runners on second but did not score to win in the ninth, tenth, eleventh (when Burton led off with a double), and left a runner on first after a lead off single in the 14th.  In the 15th, Clint Allen singled with one out and Burton singled him home from second with two outs.  Liberal won despite seven errors while Dodge City had two errors.  Both teams had 15 hits.  Both teams used six pitchers.

On the mound, the BJ bullpen had a great night.  Josh Zanger went 4 and 1/3 scoreless.  Bailey Cantu went 1 and 2/3 scoreless.  Payton Bauer pitched 1 and 1/3 allowing two unearned runs after two BJ errors in the ninth.  Ryan Thomas went five scoreless innings allowing one hit and one walk in extra innings.  Christian Isenhour got the win working a perfect 15th.

At the plate, Krauel had a breakthrough game.  He was 4-7 with two doubles and the game tying RBI in the ninth.  Burton was 0-4 when he came to bat in the ninth but would then go 3-4 with two doubles, three RBI’s, and the memorable game winning hit.  Burton finished 3-8.  Chase Hacker was 3-7 and caught all 15 innings.

Liberal evens their season series with Dodge City and is 15-8 overall and 13-7 in the Jayhawk.  Dodge City is 9-8 and 7-8 in the Jayhawk.  After a lot of talking back and forth between the two teams in an emotional game, the squads play at 7:30 Sunday night at Dodge City with pre-game at 7:15 on 1270 and kscbnews.net.

 

Audio from pregame and first five innings:

Audio from sixth to tenth innings:

 

Audio eleventh inning to postgame: