BJ’s Even Series with Derby

It was a satisfying Saturday for the Liberal Bee Jays. They used strong pitching, defense, and timely hitting in a 5-2 win over the Derby Twins Saturday night at Brent Gould Field. It was Liberal’s first win against the Twins after four losses.

The Twins struck first scoring an unearned run against BJ starter Ray Ashford in the first and adding a run in the third to lead 2-0. The Bee Jays plated a fourth inning run without a hit thanks to a Zach Reding walk and stolen base followed by an error. The BJ’s took the lead in the sixth. Alec Isaac led off the inning lining a triple to the wall in right center. Reding bounced a single up the middle to tie the game. Mike Rampone delivered a two out RBI single to center to drive home the lead run. Liberal added insurance in the eighth when Reding pulled a pitch over the right field wall against a 15 mile per hour wind. Kyle. Lieser walked with the bases loaded to make it 5-2.

Ray Ashford pitched seven strong innings for the win. He allowed one earned run, struck out eight, and walked one. Nick Jones worked a scoreless eighth and Tyler Wiedenfeld pitched a scoreless ninth for his second save.

Offensively, Rampone was 3-3 and Reding was 2-3. Derby out-hit the BJ’s 7-6. The Twins had two errors leading to an unearned run and the one BJ error led to an unearned run.

Liberal is 11-11 and 7-11 in the Jayhawk League as Derby is 15-7 and 10-6 in league. The same two teams square off tonight at 7 on m1270 and kscbnews.net. Scantlin’s furniture is the buyout sponsor.

In the Jayhawk Hays held off the Broncos 6-4 in Hays. Dodge City at Wellington was rained out.

Wellington 14-2

Derby 10-6

Hays 9-9

Liberal 7-11

El Dorado 6-11

Dodge Zcity 5-12