Saints Stay Hot In Wichita; Run-Rule Trojans 10-0

WICHITA, Kan. – The Seward County Saints kept their hot bats from a weekend ago, beating the Colby Trojans in a run-rule shut out in six innings, 10-0, to advance to the next round of the Region VI Tournament.

Tanner King (9-3) picked up the win on the mound in another outstanding outing on the mound, giving up just three hits in six innings pitched, not allowing any runs.

Seward finished with 11 hits on the day with Dylan Paul (3), Cayde Ward (3) and Joseph Kuhn (3) each finishing with multiple hits. They also all came away with multiple RBI as the Trojans found it hard to get through the middle of the lineup.  Paul (4 RBI) and Kuhn (3 RBI) each came away with a home run in the game.

Brendan Madsen started the Saints off on the right foot, reaching base on an error by the shortstop.  After two straight outs, Ward continued his hot streak and hit a stand up double to left field to score Madsen and give the Saints an early 1-0 lead.

The Saints took an inning off in between their scores but scored runs in bunches in the top of the third.  The scoring once again started with Madsen reaching base, but this time was brought home from a Dylan Paul single.  Ward followed with a single to center field to push the lead to 3-0 before Joe Kuhn crushed a three-run home run over the 385-foot left field wall.

Paul led off the fifth inning with a single to center field and advanced to third bases off an error from a Ward hard ground ball to third base. With two outs, a passed ball allowed Paul to reach home safely to push the Seward lead to seven.

Seward push their lead to double digits in the sixth inning.  Bergdall ledoff with a single to centerfield before advancing to second with from a Cruz Shope walk. Two straight strikeouts made it appear that the Trojans would escape the threat, but Paul had other ideas, crushing a home run off the center field video screen for a three-run blast to make it 10-0.

The Trojans led off the bottom of the sixth with a single to center field.  After a fly out to centerfield, King walked his first batter in over 18 innings to put runners on first and second.  He responded by forcing a 3-6-1 double play to end the game from the run-rule.

Seward will play the winner of Johnson County and Barton at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow (Saturday). The game can be heard on 1270 AM with Brock Kappelmann (pxp) on the call.