Bix sixth inning propels Barton past Garden City

Garden City, KS-A one-run game got out of hand in a hurry. 

Kyle Walker crushed three home runs, Antonio Mendez struck out five, and 24^th-ranked Barton hammered Garden City, 14-4 in six innings in game one Thursday afternoon at Williams Stadium. 

Broncbuster starter, Bradley Feezer, who was facing his old team, allowed six earned runs on six hits in 5 1/3. He surrendered two of the three jacks to Walker. 

Trailing 4-3 in the sixth, the wheels completely fell off for Garden City (16-20, 5-12). Walker led off the inning with a solo homer. Then, with the bases loaded, Sawyer Marshall misplayed a ball in left field that allowed two runs to score. After another error by Karson Evans at first plated a run, John Connors hit a sacrifice fly to make it 9-3. Three batters later, Walker mashed his second long ball of the inning, a line-drive that snuck over the glove of a leaping Cody Kilpatrick in right. Cesar Gomez and Tyler Janssen followed with RBI singles that gave the Cougars a 14-4 advantage. 

The inning's final stat line: 14 batters came to the plate and scored 10 runs on six hits. It marked the second straight game that Garden City allowed nine or more runs in a single frame. 

Following Walker's three-run blast into the Auto Zone Parking lot behind the right-field wall in the first that gave the visitors a 4-0 lead, Sean Togher and Brittain Brewer produced RBI base hits in the bottom half to slice the advantage to two. Then in the fourth, the Broncbusters made it a one-run game when Mason Tafoya doubled home Kilpatrick to cut Barton's lead to 4-3. But with the tying run at third, Joshua Miller struck out swinging to end the inning. 

It was an uphill battle from there.  

All but two players for Barton, which recorded their 10^th straight win to improve to 28-8 overall and 17-4 in the Jayhawk, recorded a hit. Walker finished 4-for-4 with seven RBI and three runs scored. Connors and Hunter Alvord each had two RBI.