The Barton Community College baseball team completed a sweep of a Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Western Division series for the first time this season with a four-game romp past Cloud County over the weekend at Lawson-Biggs Field.
Barton beat Cloud County 5-4 and 13-10 on Sunday, and scored 10 or more runs in three of the four games over the weekend.
The sweep improves the Cougars to 15-9 in the West and 26-15 overall. Cloud falls to 4-16 in the West and 17-19 overall.
The Cougars will travel to Butler to take on the Grizzlies next weekend as Barton tries to close strong in order to host one of the four sub regionals in early May.
Butler is 9-11 in the conference and 18-19 overall. Prior to that Barton will play a single nine-inning mid-week game at Lawson-Biggs Field against the Kansas Wesleyan JV Tuesday night 6.
The Cougars had to work for their two wins Sunday, scoring two in its last at bat of the opener to rally for a 5-4 win. Then coming from behind in the middle innings in the nightcap for the win.
Ian Smith, who pitched a complete game, settled in on the mound after a rough start in the opener Sunday in just his second start of the season. Smith, who moved from bullpen late-inning work to starter after the season-ending injury to Robbie Van Cour, gave up three runs in the first two innings but gave up just one unearned run over the final five innings to keep the Cougars within striking distance.
Barton whittled the lead to 4-3 with single runs in the fourth and fifth innings then began its rally with one out in the seventh and final inning.
Nathan Miller started things with an infield single followed by a Ryan Busboom single to left.
Michael Tennessen walked to load the bases, and Adam Smith singled to tie the game at four, scoring Miller and keeping the bases loaded.
Tanner Carpenter drew a walk to score Busboom and give the Cougars the come-from-behind win.
Ian Smith picked up the win to improve to 2-1.
The two teams knocked the ball around the park in the final game as the wind continued to howl out to right-center.
Back-to-back two-out doubles by Dylan Monroe and Busboom gave Barton a 2-0 lead in the second, which they increased to 6-2 in the third with the help of two unearned runs.
Cloud knocked around Barton starter Tyler Davis in the fifth and sixth innings after allowing Cloud just two runs through the first four innings of play. By the time Kyle Leroy got Barton out of the sixth inning, Cloud had an 8-7 lead on the Cougars.
Barton wasted little time in regaining that lead. The Cougars scored five runs in the bottom of the sixth.
Jordan Slade started with a leadoff double followed by an RBI single by Frederico Castagnini and a walk to Mitch Slauter.
After a sacrifice from Miller moved the runners up, Busboom gave Barton the lead back with a single to score Castagnini and Slauter.
Carpenter doubled in Busboom later in the inning and Monroe added an unearned run as Barton went ahead 12-8.
A Busboom triple and sac fly by Tennessen in the eighth made it 13-8 and Barton held on for a 13-10 win.