Saints Shocked by Busters

Midway through the conference season, the Jayhawk West trophy was right in front of the Seward County Lady Saints noses. Going into Wednesday’s conference tilts with 6th place Garden City, Seward didn’t expect it to be any different coming out of the doubleheader but boy were they wrong. The Lady Saints were shocked by the Busters, as they were shutout 3-0 in the opener of the doubleheader and were pounded 8-0 in run rule fashion in the second game to fall out of 1st place in the conference race.

After shutting Garden City out in both of their first two meetings of the year, Seward gifted the Lady Busters a 1st inning run in game one on Wednesday, committing a two out error to give Garden City an early 1-0 lead.

The Seward offense struggled against Garden City pitching early in this one as they were blanked through three innings and after a 1-2-3 top half of the 3rd, Garden City extended their lead to 2-0 with a two out single in the bottom half of the frame.

The Lady Saints still couldn’t get anything going on offense and remained down 2-0 into the bottom of the 5th when the Busters used three straight singles to net their third run of the game to take a 3-0 lead.

Grace Petersen tried to jumpstart the Lady Saints in the 6th with a two out double, but once again, nothing was cooking and Seward remained down 3-0 into the final inning of play.

In the 7th, Joe Ann Rapoza led off with a bunt single, but that was all that Seward could muster and just like that Garden City took the opener by a count of 3-0.

Tough luck could have been the culprit in game one for the Lady Saints as they finished with a wild line of 0 walks and 0 strikeouts in the game, meaning that they put the ball in play 21 times and only managed to pick up 5 hits. Petersen finished 1 for 3 and had the games only extra base hit. Jaclyn Wagner took the loss in the circle for Seward, falling to 15-6 on the year as she allowed 6 hits and 2 earned runs while striking out 5.

SEWARD COUNTY/GARDEN CITY GAME ONE BOX SCORE<http://www.sewardsaints.com/sports/sball/2014-15/boxscores/20150408_rp1i.xml>

Unfortunately for the gals in green, things didn’t get any prettier in game two.

After a 1-2-3 top half of the 1st for Seward, the Lady Busters jumped in front in the bottom half, scoring twice after a pair of Lady Saint errors to grab the early 2-0 lead.

The middle of the Seward order was up in the 2nd, but it didn’t matter as Garden City pitcher Rachel Roe struck out the side and kept Garden City rolling.

The Busters extended their lead to 3-0 in the 2nd as the Lady Saints walked a run home and Garden City blew the game open with four runs on three hits in the 3rd to make it a 7-0 game.

The Lady Saints picked up their first baserunner of the game in the top of the 4th with a leadoff single from Jaidyn Mawhinney, but couldn’t do anything with it as they remained behind 7-0.

Seward put their first runner of the game at second base in the 5th, but a fly out and a groundout ended their threat there and it stayed a 7-0 game.

Seward had another chance to get on the board in the 6th with a pair of one out singles, but once again, the middle of their lineup was silent and a strikeout followed by a groundout shut things down with a run scored.

After two quick outs in the bottom of the 6th, the Lady Saints defense committed their seventh error of the game to allow Garden City to score a run and thus end the game in run rule fashion 8-0.

Seward finished the game with just 5 hits and had 7 errors defensively. Mawhinney was the only Lady Saint player to finish the day with a multi-hit game as she was 2 for 3 in the leadoff spot for Seward in game two. Alexa O’Brien was tagged with the loss, allowing 9 hits and 8 runs, just 2 of those earned, to drop to 13-8 on the year.

SEWARD COUNTY/GARDEN CITY GAME TWO BOX SCORE<http://www.sewardsaints.com/sports/sball/2014-15/boxscores/20150408_l3my.xml>

The off day was a costly one for the Lady Saints who fall to 28-16 overall on the year but more importantly, drop a rung on the Jayhawk West ladder and out of 1st place at 11-5, now one game behind Butler. Garden City improves to one game over .500 overall on the season at 22-21 and evens up their Jayhawk West mark at 8-8.

Seward will go out of conference this weekend in Lamar, Colorado when they face Region IX opponents Otero and Lamar in doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday.

Roy Allen