Cloud County Baseball Sweeps Conference Series with Garden City
Following up a 30-run performance at home on Wednesday afternoon as part of a doubleheader sweep, the Cloud County Community College baseball team had an even more impressive offensive showing on Friday with redshirt freshman Jakob Poturnak breaking the single-game RBI record to help beat host Garden City by scores of 11-0 and 25-4 to finish off a four-game sweep at Williams Stadium in Garden City, Kansas.
Winning their fourth Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference West Division series of the year and third by sweep, Cloud County improves to 36-16 overall and 20-8 in the KJCCC West. Garden City drops to 6-40 overall and 2-26 in the KJCCC West with four more games remaining in their 2023-24 campaign.
Game One:
Continuing their offensive onslaught from Wednesday, there was once again little doubt in finding out how the games were going to go from the early innings as the T-Birds broke a scoreless tie in the top of the second by second 10 batters to the plate and hitting two home as part of a six-hit, seven-run inning. Following base-hit singles from Poturnak and Landon Meyer, Nolan Freund put CCCC on the scoreboard with a three-run home run. A Cam MaCleod double was followed by an Austin Coyle RBI single to add to the scoring with Gavin Roy driving in the Kamloops, British Columbia native on a sacrifice fly two batters later. A Demitri Shakotko two-run homer capped off the inning as Cloud County went on to plate three in the third before surrendering one run to Garden City on two hits in the bottom of the fourth to take a 10-1 lead into the fifth.
With a chance to push their lead back to double-digits and end the game in the bottom of the fifth, the T-Birds saw a double play lead to a quick offensive end of the inning while working around a hit batter and walk to strand two Broncbuster runners in a hitless inning for GCCC. Coyle led off the sixth with a double and moved to third on a wild pitch to have Roy bring him home on an RBI groundout to put Cloud County back up 10 at 11-1 with Wil Yamka throwing a scoreless bottom of the inning to end the game.
The 11 runs for CCCC came on 11 hits and two walks with five of the hits going for extra bases. Freund, MaCleod, and Coyle all had two-hit games with Freund driving in four runs and scoring twice. Eight different batters for the T-Birds had at least one hit with Cloud County hitting .407 in the game while stranding just three base runners. On the mound, Jack MacIntosh picked up his seventh win of the year by going five innings and allowing one run on three hits while seeing Yamka strike out three batters on 21 pitches in his one inning of work.
Game Two:
If the 41 runs scored in the first three games of the series weren't enough for the T-Bird offense, then game four provided any additional run support one could ask for with a nine-run top of the first and seven-run top of the second giving CCCC a 16-0 lead heading into the top of the second. A leadoff home run for Paul Schuyler put Cloud County on the board one batter into the game with the T-Birds batting around the order before seeing an out recorded in the inning as all nine batters came around to score. The second home run of the inning for Schuyler was in the form of a three-run blast that forced a Garden City pitching change with home runs from Freund and Coyle in the second inning all but putting the game out of reach after the first nine outs of the game were recorded.
Three hits led to three runs for Garden City in the bottom of the second but were followed by a bases-loaded RBI walk for Roy to get one of the runs back before a two-run top of the fourth for CCCC to take a 19-3 lead. After hitting a solo home run in the fourth inning, Poturnak blasted a three-run shot in the top of the fifth to break the single-game RBI record with two runs being driven home in the first, two in the second, one in the fourth, and then three in the fifth to have eight on the day and break a record held by five different T-Birds. Working with a 22-3 lead after five innings of play, Cloud County pushed across one additional run in the sixth and two more in the seventh while allowing one final run from GCCC to come home in the bottom of the seventh to finish off a game that was destined for mercy rule from the very start.
19 hits, nine walks, and five hit batters helped Cloud County with their massive offensive output as six different players had at least two hits with Poturnak leading all players with a four-for-six outing. 14 different players had at least one at-bat with seven different players having an extra-base hit in the game with 10 stranded base runners being about the only negative mark against the T-Bird offense. Four different pitchers threw for CCCC on the mound with John Klus going two innings in the starting role and facing 11 batters before turning things over to Noah Bourgeois for a scoreless two-inning outing. Zach Sharshel also had a two-inning outing and struck out three on 24 pitches while Myles Chamberlain threw the final inning of action and struck out two.
What's Next?
With 20 wins in the KJCCC West, Cloud County is one win away from matching their single-season high win total in conference play with four games remaining in the regular season. The final Jayhawk West Division series of the year for the T-Birds will begin next Thursday, May 2nd with a trip to El Dorado to take on Butler Community College in an 11 AM doubleheader at McDonald Stadium. Butler is 32-18 overall and 16-10 in the KJCCC West after dropping a road doubleheader at Dodge City on Friday afternoon with the series set to conclude on Saturday in El Dorado. One loss by Seward County in their final seven KJCCC games or two losses by either Butler or Dodge City in their final six games will clinch a home playoff series for CCCC as would one win by the T-Birds in their four-game series with the Grizzlies. As of this recap, Cloud County can finish as high as second or as low as fifth with a top-four finish guaranteeing a home playoff series for the third-straight season.