WICHITA — Talk about polar-opposite games.
As poorly as the Great Bend High School Panthers struggled in the first game of a baseball doubleheader with Word of Life, the same could be said about the Fire in the nightcap.
The Panthers walloped Word of Life 17-2 in second game of a non-conference doubleheader at Robertson Field. The 15-run rule went into effect after three innings.
But it was a far different scenario in the opener, where Word of Life scored in every inning but the second in posting an 11-1 win. The 10-run rule went into effect after six innings.
Between games, Great Bend head coach Randy Beck and his coaching staff had a long conversation with the team down the left-field line — even as light rain fell.
Ultimately, the rains held off and the Panthers bats woke up to salvage a split, breaking a three-game losing streak in the process as their record stands at 9-3 on the season. Word of Life, which plays an independent schedule, is now 20-9.
“You coach teenagers and sometimes it’s difficult to have them ready for every single game,” Beck said. “We just talked (between games) about being mentally prepared to compete.
“I know it’s there and they just have to pull it out. It starts upstairs.”
In the nightcap, Great Bend seized a 3-0 lead in the first inning, highlighted by Matt Marshall’s two-run double. The Panthers then exploded for 14 in the second, sending 19 batters to the plate and capitalizing on seven Fire errors in turning the game into a laugher.
Jeff Pike had a three-run double, Landon Leuenberger had a run-scoring double, Mitch Kottas hit a two-run single and Darien Blackwill had an RBI triple to highlight the Panthers’ second-inning surge, where they totaled seven hits in the inning and were accommodated by a plethora of Word of Life miscues.
“When we’re ready to play, we’re usually pretty good and we showed that in the second game.”
Blackwill allowed two hits in pitching all three innings for the Panthers.
Word of Life 11,
Great Bend 1 (6)
Darian Unruh hit a sacrifice fly and Jordan Miller and Brendon Mellinger hit RBI singles in the first inning for the Fire, who seized a 4-0 lead they kept building.
Jace Bowman, Blackwill and Cole Smith hit consecutive singles for the Panthers in the top of the third. Smith’s base hit drove in Bowman with their only run of the game.
But Caleb Cherryholmes hit a two-run single in the third to stretch Word of Life’s lead to 6-1. In the fourth, Unruh hit an RBI single and Jeff Melton lifted a sacrifice fly to extend the margin to 8-1.
Two Word of Life runs in the fifth and one in the sixth put a lid on it.
GAME NOTES — Robertson Field is named after the Robertson family from nearby Maize. Nate Robertson is a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. … According to MaxPreps, Word of Life lead-off hitter Blaine Birdwell is the career stolen base king in state history. He led the state last season with 40 swipes in 43 attempts and eclipsed the 100 plateau for his career earlier this season, shattering the old state record of 89. He had one steal against the Panthers in Tuesday’s doubleheader, giving him at least 110 for his career.
HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL
At Wichita
Robertson Field
Tuesday
GAME 1
Word of Life 11, Great Bend 1 (6)
123 456 R H E
GBHS 001 000 1 5 1
Word 402 221 11 8 0
Nick Ney, Matt Marshall (3), Stefan Bennett (6) & Landon Leuenberger; Nick Rotola & Jeff Melton; W — Rotola. L — Ney. 2B — Word of Life (Darian Unruh).
GAME 2
Great Bend 17, Word of Life 2 (3)
1 2 3 R H E
GBHS 3(14) 0 17 9 0
Word 1 1 0 2 2 7
Darien Blackwill & Landon Leuenberger; Caleb Cherryholmes, Darian Unruh (2), Konner Allen (2) & Jeff Melton. W — Blackwill. L — Cherryholmes. 2B — Great Bend (Jeff Pike, Landon Leuenberger). 3B — Great Bend (Blackwill).
