Phil Lee
LIBERAL, Kan. – The rally caps were on for the Seward County Community College baseball team with a pair of come-from-behind wins and a doubleheader sweep of Pratt Community College, 9-6 and 18-11, at Brent Gould Field on Wednesday.
The Saints, who bounced back from heartbreaking losses to Garden City last weekend, improved to 10-16 in the Jayhawk West and 23-26 overall. SCCC, which has won eight of its last 12 games, wraps up the series at Pratt on Saturday with games at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
GAME ONE
Grant Cox‘s walk-off, three-run homer powered Seward to a 9-6 win in extra innings over Pratt in the first game.
The Saints trailed 6-3 before tallying six runs over the game’s last three frames. Seward scored twice in the bottom of the sixth on a Hayden Ramage two-run single and in the seventh on Kotaro Wakui‘s run-scoring double, knotting the game at 6-6 and sending the game into extra innings.
After a scoreless eighth inning by the Beavers, the Saints started their half of the inning with a Ramage single followed by a Beaver error that allowed Blaine Chancy to reach first. Reuben Ayala sacrificed the runners to second and third, setting up Cox’s game-winning heroics. Cox fouled off the first two pitches, but did not miss the third, sending it deep over the left-field wall and giving Seward the 9-6 triumph.
Pratt scored first with two runs in the fourth inning before Seward scored three times to take the lead. The Beavers plated four more runs to take a 6-3 advantage.
John Langehennig posted the win relief with two runs on four hits, struck out three and walked none over three innings.
Ramage went 3-for 5 and Nathan Hopkins, Colton Rowan, Cox, Chancy and Wakui each added two hits for Seward, which had 15 hits on the game.
GAME TWO
The Saints needed a big inning to get things going and got it with a nine-run fourth for an 18-11 victory over Pratt in the nightcap.
It was a slugfest from the start with the teams trading five runs each in the first inning. Pratt struck next by grabbing a 10-5 lead on two runs in the second inning and three runs in the fourth. Then the Seward bats took over in the bottom of the inning. Hayden Ramage exploded with five RBI on a two-run homer and a three-run double to power the Saints in the inning. Grant Cox added a two-run double and Kotaro Wakui and Jacob Urias each had RBI singles for the rest of the scoring.
Seward scored four times over the fifth and sixth innings and Pratt tallied a final run to make it an 18-11 final.
Ramage ended up with four hits and his five RBI effort while Brooks Barber also drove in five runs, including a three-run homer in the first inning. Stephen Brown posted the win with 5 1/3 innings of relief.
