Dodge City Sweeps Seward in Jayhawk Opener

What has been a rough start to the 2016 season for the Seward County Lady Saints got even tougher Saturday afternoon at Lady Saints Field in Liberal as Seward dropped both ends of a Jayhawk West opening double header to visiting Dodge City to fall to 5-15 on the year.

Seward fell behind right away in game one of the double header as Dodge City plated a pair in the top half of the 1st inning, putting the Lady Saints behind 2-0 before they got a chance to hit.

It remained a 2-0 game after two complete innings when the Conquistadors added to their advantage with two more tallies in the top half of the 3rd to push their lead to 4-0.

The Seward bats remained dormant until the 5th when they finally broke through against Dodge City pitching, scoring twice on Conq errors and getting another on an RBI single from Taylor Kathler to get back to within one at 4-3.

Seward gave a run right back on an error in the top of the 6th to make it 5-3, but answered with a run in the bottom of the inning on another Conq mistake and the two teams went to the 7th and final inning with the score Dodge City 5 and Seward County 4.

Dodge City threatened to open the game up in the 7th, loading the bases with two outs, but Lady Saints starter Kelly Kearney induced a fly ball to right to end the inning and keep it a one run game for her offense as they came up to bat for the final time in the game.

After two quick outs in the 7th, down to their last out, Brittany Corrales doubled for the Lady Saints, giving them one shot to tie the game with a clutch hit, but Seward couldn’t get it as a ground ball to third ended it as Dodge City hung on 5-4 for the win.

Dodge outhit Seward 9-6 in the contest while the two teams combined for 5 errors. No Seward player had more than 1 hit in the contest and Corrales had the only extra base hit for the Lady Saints with the 7th inning double. Kearney took the loss, going the whole way in the circle for the Lady Saints, allowing 9 hits and 5 runs while walking 6 to fall to 4-4 on the year.

SEWARD COUNTY/DODGE CITY GAME ONE BOX SCORE<http://www.sewardsaints.com/sports/sball/2015-16/boxscores/20160305_re9g.xml>

Just when the Lady Saints thought things couldn’t get any worse in game two, they did. Without hitting a single ball out of the infield in the top of the 2nd, Dodge City loaded the bases and after Seward pitching walked a run in, the Conqs cleared the bases and saw four runs cross the plate on a simple single up the middle and three base error to quickly take a 5-0 lead in the game.

The Lady Saints bats couldn’t answer and the Conqs poured it on in the 3rd, scoring four more times to make it a 9-0 game after just 2 ½ innings of action.

Dodge added another run in the 5th to make it 10-0 and the Lady Saints threatened, but could only manage a single tally in the bottom of the inning as the Conqs forced the run rule to take effect with a 10-1 win after just five innings of play.

Conq hitters pounded out 11 hits against Seward County pitching and 3 Lady Saint errors led to 4 unearned runs in the loss. Seward was led by Jaidyn Mawhinney at the top of the lineup who was a perfect 3 for 3 while the middle of the Lady Saints order behind Mawhinney went a combined 1 for 11 in the loss. Alexis Cuellar took the loss on the rubber, allowing 6 runs on 5 hits in just 2 innings of work.

SEWARD COUNTY/DODGE CITY GAME TWO BOX SCORE<http://www.sewardsaints.com/sports/sball/2015-16/boxscores/20160305_ztxl.xml>

Seward has now lost 9 of 10 to fall to 5-15 on the year and drops their first two Jayhawk Conference games to go to 0-2 to start the conference season.

The Lady Saints will look to get back on track Tuesday when they take on Kansas Wesleyan JV in Salina before returning to conference play on Wednesday with a date with the red hot Barton Cougars in Great Bend.