Barton Baseball loses pitching duel at Butler

The Barton Community College baseball team dropped a pair of one-run games Saturday as Butler Community College swept the conference doubleheader.  The Cougars dropped the first game scheduled for seven innings as Butler came through with a walk-off double in the eighth inning to win 2-1 as each team could only muster three hits apiece.  In the night cap the Grizzlies came out on the top end of a 3-2 victory as the Cougars stranded eight on base.  The pair of losses drops Barton to 4-4 in the Jayhawk West and 9-10 on the season while Butler stands atop the standings at 5-1 and 13-7 overall.  The teams will conclude the four-game series in El Dorado with another 1:00 p.m. doubleheader on Sunday.  

Barton's Alexander Evans and Butler's Corbin Osborn both recorded complete games in the first contest each giving up only three hits.  Butler was able to push one across in the third as a leadoff single was sacrificed to second, an infield bunt pushed the runner to third, and another sacrifice scored the run.

Trevor Hughes led off the sixth inning with a double to center and Josh Farrington's bunt was misplayed sending Hughes all the way around from second to score Barton's lone run.

Barton stranded two of their five runners in the eighth as Butler capitalized on a leadoff hit by pitch to score the winning run on a walk-off double to right field.

Evans dropped to 0-2 on the season on the three hits, two runs, one walk, and five strikeouts.  With all of Barton's three hits coming on doubles, Hughes picked up two of them the first coming in the sixth and the second coming in the seventh as pinch runner Jordan Plank was thrown out at home on the play to end the inning.  Evan McDonald had the other double, but was picked off third on Josh White's groundout to end the inning. 

Butler took an early one-run lead in the second game as consecutive singles to lead off the first set up a groundout RBI.  Barton countered in the fourth as White led off with a single followed by Farrington reaching on a sac but.  Hughes loaded the bases with a single to left then Trevor Turner was plunked by a pitch pushing a run across but a double play would end any more damage by the Cougars.

The Grizzlies got the run back on the second pitch of the home half of the fourth as Zach Baker homered to right field for his first round tripper of the season.  One inning later a two-out single increased the Butler lead to two.

Farrington benefited by the first of two Butler errors in the sixth reaching base advancing to second as Minor delivered a single to center.  Following another Butler error, Farrington scored on Hughes' groundout to cut the deficit to one.  Unable to come through with another big hit in the innings, Barton's last hope in the seventh was stranded at first as McDonald's two-out single to center was al Barton could get.

Jayme Lovelace took the loss to drop to 0-2 on the season in giving up eight hits, three runs, one walk, and four strikeouts.  Jackson Rose pitched the last 1.1 innings of no-hit innings striking out two and walking one.

Jacob Richardson was the lone multi-hit game for Barton going 2-for-4 as Butler outhit the Cougars 8-7.