The Great Bend High School softball team’s hopes for a home game in the first round of a Class 5A regional tournament are still alive after Maize swept Goddard-Eisenhower on Tuesday night.
Losing 1-0 and 3-2, Eisenhower fell to 17-3 overall, giving Hays a No. 1 seed.
The Lady Panthers will need to sweep Hutchinson today in a doubleheader to finish at 17-3 and tie with Eisenhower for the No. 2 seed. The twinbill starts at 4.
If a tie occurs, a coin toss will determine which team will be the second seed, having home-field advantage in the first round.
The Lady Panthers have benefited from a potent offense with young bats in the order coming up with big hits.
Leading the Lady Panthers, who have scored 172 runs this season (9.5 runs per game), is sophomore Elizabeth Barber, who has a team-best .421 batting average with 24 hits this season. She leads the team in RBIs (16) and on-base percentage (.492).
Freshman Dakota Sanders is hitting .405 with 17 hits and 12 RBIs.
Junior Stephanie Morrison and sophomore McKenna Mauler lead the Lady Panthers with 26 hits apiece.
Mauler is hitting .394, and Morrison is batting .388.