Barton Baseball splits Saturday’s games in Oklahoma

Bouncing back from Friday's heartbreaking season opening loss, the Barton Community College baseball team split its games Saturday in Oklahoma, opening the day with a win before dropping the second.  The Cougars put runs on the board in six of the seven innings in the opener clubbing Region VI member Highland Community College 15-3 before falling again to the opportune host Carl Albert State College 3-1.  Barton will wrap up its three-day trip to Poteau taking on the Scotties of Highland again in an 11:00 a.m. first pitch.

Claflin's Colton Zink made the most of his first collegiate start coming in Saturday's game against Highland with a 3-for-5 effort including a first inning triple driving home two of the Cougars four runs.   Zink would finish his debut with a seventh inning single for his fourth RBI as the Cougars capped the victory with five runs in the final evening.  Michael Sinks also had a three hit effort at the plate adding two of the Cougars nine stolen bases while Corrigan Bartlett followed Sinks in the lineup with a two-hit three RBI game while swiping four bases.   Pounding out sixteen hits in the contest, Matthew Baca joined Bartlett with the multi-hit games as did Drake Bliss which included a double in the seventh while Alan Cark joined the two-hit parade including triple to lead off the two-run second inning.

Cody Brewer picked up the win striking out six in five innings of work aided by the scoreless inning from Brant Millerborg and the two strikeouts from Avery Riedmiller closing the game out.

Having Carl Albert State on the ropes down to their last strike three times in Friday's eventual walk-off loss, Barton hit the field Saturday afternoon hoping to erase the memory with another matchup with the Vikings thirty minutes after its hit parade against Highland.  Instead, the Cougars ran across the lights out pitching from AJ Deason being limited to three hits and returning to the dugout eleven times without making contact.  

Barton starter Garret Rogers and Taylor Langston weren't too shabby on the Cougars end combining for a five-hit effort scattering five hits and striking out four while surrendering a lone earned run. 

Carl Albert produced single runs in the first and third innings with the Cougars cutting the deficit in half with a Sinks single driving in Derek Johnson.   The Vikings would get the run back in the home half as a leadoff double would score one-out later on a single to the outfield.