Broncbusters blank Lamar in season opener

Garden City, KS-On opening day 2025, Garden City did something that took them 13 games to accomplish last year: win two games.  

And they did so in dominant fashion. 

Akoi Burton smashed his first-career home run off the video board in left field, Sean Togher tossed four shutout innings, and Garden City won the first game of Wednesday afternoon's doubleheader, beating Lamar, 5-0 at Williams Stadium.  

Roy Higinbotham went 3-for-3 at the plate, and Karson Evans collected two hits for the Broncbusters, which won a season opener for the first time since Feb. 7, 2022.  

Once Evans' RBI single put Garden City up, 1-0 in the first, Burton provided the cushion in the third. After Higinbotham and Evans each earned free passes off Lopes' hurler Manuel Garcia, Burton tattooed a 2-2 breaking ball over the left-field fence to give Garden City a 4-0 advantage.  

Evans provided some cushion with a run-scoring base hit in the fifth.  

Meantime Togher worked out of a two-on-two-out jam in the first by getting Keenan Oxford to bounce out to third. He worked around more trouble in the second with an inning-ending strikeout of Ryan Casados and maneuvered out of a bases-loaded mess in the third when he got Santiago Long to chase strike three in the dirt. He finished his day with a one-two-three fourth inning. 

Togher's final line: Seven strikeouts and four hits over four innings. He threw 75 pitches. 

His counterpart, Garcia, allowed four runs on six hits in 3 1/3.