Finally a sweep. The Barton Community College baseball team had played six doubleheaders this season. And six times the day ended with a split.
Wednesday afternoon in Colby the Cougars finally changed that. Barton swept the Trojans, 3-1 and 9-4 as the two teams made up half of the 4-game series wiped out the final weekend of February due to weather.
“We played really well in all aspects of the game,” Coach Brent Biggs said of the sweep. “We were able to get two huge starts out of Jordan Plank and Cody Brewer on short rest.  
“We are in the middle of 12 conference games in 10 days so we are going to need some guys to step up on the mound and both of them were up for the task.”
The sweep puts Barton in a logjam in second place in the Jayhawk West with a 4-2 record while Colby fell to 1-5. Barton is 9-8 overall and Colby 7-9. The two teams will make up the other two games Wednesday.
Plank threw six scoreless innings in the opener before running into some trouble in the bottom of the seventh. He gave up his only run on the game in that final inning before Alex Evans came in to shut the door and earn the save.
Plank improved to 5-0 and lowered his ERA to 1.78 with the win. Evans picked up his fourth save of the season.
Lance White drove in two in the win including giving Barton a 1-0 lead in the opening inning as he doubled in Evan McDonald.  White would drive in McDonald again the third with a groundout for a 2-0 lead. Josh Farrington made it 3-0 in the sixth on a 2-out single to score Trevor Turner.
The Cougars took a lot suspense out of game two with five runs in the third and three more in the sixth. The Cougars had built a 9-0 lead into the ninth before Colby rallied for four runs.
Brewer was dominate on the mound for Barton. He allowed just one hit in seven innings with five strike outs to earn the win, improving to 2-2 on the season.
White drove in two more in the win, this time with a double and homer. Jacob Richardson also had two hits and two RBI and McDonald ended with three hits. White and Turner each scored twice for Barton.
“We threw strikes, made routine plays, and were able to get timely hits, which more times than not will put you in a good position to win baseball games,” Coach Biggs said. “Hitting, just like anything else, has a lot to do with confidence and being comfortable and it looks like we are starting to find a comfort level offensively.”
Barton will be on the road this weekend with a trip to El Dorado to take on Butler. The teams will play two games Saturday and two on Sunday. First pitch at McDonald Park is set for 1 p.m. both days.
“We were finally able to get a streak started and hopefully we can continue it this weekend against a very good Butler County team,” Coach Biggs said.