Garden City loses on walk-off single in the 11th
By Mike Pilosof
Photo by Adam Shrimplin
Garden City, KS-Garden City suffered another heartbreaking defeat on Tuesday.
Juan Chaparro delivered a walk-off single in the bottom of the 11th, and Otero beat the Broncbusters 7-6 at Rattlers Field.
Garden City battled uphill all day long. They fell behind in the first on Tyler Scheler's RBI groundout. They rebounded in the second when Jean Barreto scored on a wild pitch, and Leonel Anaya clubbed a run-scoring base hit to center to make it 2-1.
But that's the only time they were in front.
The Rattlers responded with three runs in fourth, capped with Scheler's two-run single to center that put Otero up 4-2.
In the top of the fifth, the Broncbusters rallied again. Dakota Finely and Ibrahim Rodriguez stroked back-to-back two-out singles before Barreto delivered a two-run double to the gap to tie the game. Unfortunately, the freshman was thrown out at third trying to leg out a triple.
And the bullpen struggled again.
With two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Rhett Halstead, who didn't make it out of the first inning on Saturday vs. Butler, surrendered a two-run bomb to Robert Healy to put the Rattlers in front 6-4.
After stranding Finely at second in the seventh, the Broncbusters evened things up in the eighth. Mason Mitchell slapped the second of his two extra base hits: a double to center, and Cullen Glosson knocked in two with a single to left. But with the go-ahead run in scoring position, Jake Barber struck out looking. In fact, the Broncbusters put the go-ahead run on in the ninth, 10th and 11th but failed to score.
The score stayed tied until the bottom of the 11th. Raul Garcia got the first two batters before Glosson committed a two-base error at second. Chaparro then followed with the game-winning single to shallow center.
Garcia took the loss for Garden City, allowing just one unearned run on one hit in 1.2 innings. Nayton Agosto got the start, allowing one run on two hits in two innings. Mitchell finished 3-for-5 at the plate with a double and a triple.
Koy Jorgensen picked up the win for Otero, holding Garden City without a hit in two innings of relief. He struck out two. Beto Faire, Scheler and Healy each drove in two runs.
Next up: Garden City at Pratt-Thursday, March 12-12:45 p.m. pregame; 1 p.m. first pitch on 99.9 FM; westernkansasnews.com/kwkr and KWKR mobile app