By BRANDON SMITH
Barton Sports Info
The Barton Community College baseball team extended its winning streak to five straight on Thursday afternoon and took a 1-0 series lead over the Fort Scott Greyhounds on Thursday afternoon in the opening series of the Region VI Baseball Tournament at Lions Field.
Starting pitcher Reece Hemmerling tossed all seven innings for his fourth complete game shutout of the season and eighth win of the year while Robby Bolin and Ayden Hadley drove in three runs each as the Cougars defeated Fort Scott 12-0 in seven-innings in Game 1.
The 10th seeded Cougars improve to 38-19 on the season as the 7th seeded Greyhounds drop to 39-18 on the year. Game 2 of the best-of-3 opening round series will continue Friday afternoon with a 1:00 p.m. first pitch from Fort Scott's Lions Field.
Scoreless over the first inning, the first of two Greyhound errors on the day broke the scoring open with Wyatt Yetter reaching on a two-base error scoring Kyler Horsman's first of three hits on the afternoon to jumpstart the second. Hadley grew Barton's advantage to 2-0 on the next pitch delivering an RBI single for the first of his two-hit afternoon.
The Cougars' lead stretched to 4-0 just three batters into the top of the third with Horsman's fourth fence clearer of the season trotting home Owen Clyne's one-out single.
Cole Schieffer's lone hit to leadoff the fourth led to another Barton insurance run scoring on Bolin's groundout for a 5-0 lead.
Following Hemmerling's third straight 1-2-3 inning, Bolin's sacrifice fly in the sixth made it 6-0 driving home Cesar Gomez leadoff single.
Escaping the Greyhounds threat in the bottom of the sixth with runners on the corners and two outs, the Barton offense remained dialed in at the plate adding six runs in the seventh. Hadley's two-RBI single brought in Horsman's one-out single and Grant Nottlemann's double while Bolin's bases loaded hit-by-pitch and Cotton's drawn walk brought in runs with Fort Scott's second error of the game adding two more for a 12-0 advantage.
Heading back out for the seventh, Hemmerling secured the complete game shutout needing just four pitches getting a fly-out, groundout and pop-up. Going the distance for the fifth time this season, the sophomore ace yielded just three hits, walked two and struckout five in improving to 8-4 on the season.