Seward County blanks Garden City in game two

By Mike Pilosof

Photo by Adam Shrimplin

Liberal, KS-It's amazing how fast things can turn.

Jase Schneider clobbered two home runs, Tristan Curless overpowered with 16 strikeouts, and Seward County blanked Garden City, 11-0 in game two Thursday afternoon at Brent Gould Field. The Broncbusters dropped to 8-17-1 overall and 2-4 in conference play.

Garden City's nightmare began in the first inning. Chris Ueta gave up a leadoff double to Jase Schneider, who advanced to third on a passed ball before eventually scoring on a Ranse Radtke RBI groundout, Reed Thomas was plunked by a fastball with the bases loaded, Joe Finder committed an error that allowed Jacob Masters to come around, Javier Gomez ripped an RBI single, and Tucker Livermore hit a sacrifice fly to make it 6-0. The Saints added a Jaxson Gregg sac fly in the third, and two Schneider long balls-one in the fifth and one in the sixth en route to a double-digit victory.

Meantime Chris Finnegan's team had no answer for Curless, who struck out eight of the first 10 batters that he faced. In fact, the only hits Garden City managed was a Will Gardner single in the first and an Ibrahim Rodrguez base hit in the seventh.

Curless threw 118 pitches in a complete-game gem for Seward County, which scored 11 runs on 10 hits. Schneider was 3-for-5 with three RBI, and Cox collected two hits and knocked in three.

Ueta lasted just 1 1/3, giving up six runs, all unearned in his shakiest outing of the season. Cameron Sistrunk, who pitched two innings of relief, surrendered two home runs.

Next up: Garden City vs. Seward County-Saturday, March 26-1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.