Jay Daubenberger
The final week of the 2024 regular season is finally here and the Saints kicked off their four-game series with the Pratt Beavers on the road where Seward County fell behind early in game one but came back for a 12-7 win off some big home run hits but could not repeat their success in game two as they split on the day 1-1 with Pratt.
Kotaro Wakui led the Saints in the first inning to a 1-0 lead with an RBI single out to right field to bring Nathan Hopkins around the bases for the first lead of the game before a grand slam in the bottom of the inning from the Beavers propelled them ahead with a 7-1 lead that but SCCC in a big hole. Keagon Pitton responded with a home run of his own in the second before stepping back up in the third with a sacrifice fly to help Cameron Cartwright bring the score to 7-4 Beavers.
Cartwright added on to the home run festivities with a big hit that landed beyond the center field fence for another run that brings the difference down to two which Hopkins quickly evens up with a two-run homer of his own in the sixth that makes it a 7-7 game. Two clutch strikeouts from Elias Herrera forced game one into extra innings where the hitting streak continued for the Saints as Cartwright knocked out a 2 RBI double to left field combined with another 2 RBI double from Brock Sundlie to grow Seward County’s lead to 12-7 for a game one win.
The first three innings of game two went scoreless as both sides held strong in a defensive battle with the Saints led by Aldo Ostos who struck out multiple batters to keep things even at 0-0 heading into the fourth. SCCC struck first to get on the board as they kept hitting towards the fences as Mason Hagel-Pitt connected for a two-run homer to get things started for Seward County with a 2-0 lead over Pratt. The Beavers did not back away however as it was Pratt in game two who came back from behind as they scored five runs in the bottom of the inning to take a 5-2 lead over the Saints after four.
A big swing for Connor Raney resulted in SCCC’s second home run of the game and fifth on the day to add one more run to their total to trim the gap back to two but could not cut it any closer as the Beavers added another five in the fifth to grow it even farther to 10-3 where the Saints could not recover, splitting on the day after falling 10-3 in game two.
Seward County now sits at 28-25 overall on the 2024 season to go with a 16-14 record in Jayhawk conference action with just two more games remaining in the regular season. They will compete in their final two games of the season against Pratt on sophomore day this upcoming Saturday with game one scheduled to start at 1:00 PM after honoring their sophomores about twenty minutes beforehand.
