The Barton Community College softball team received strong pitching performances Monday in protecting home turf with 5-2 and 1-0 victories over Dodge City Community College.
Barton's second straight sweep against a conference opponent improves the Cougars to 10-6 after the first round of conference play and 16-12 overall while Dodge City drops to 4-8 and 10-16 on the year.
Kennedee Lara's three RBIs and Lexi Dryden's fence clearer, combined with Kayla Beers' five strikeout and five hit performance led the Cougars to the three-run game one victory.
A pitcher's duel ensued in the nightcap, Dodge City's K'Lee Flores limiting Barton to just three hits while the Cougars' Jessica Morgan fought through five Conquistador hits to strikeout out sixteen batters to preserve the shutout. Flores' lone mistake came in the third inning as Jaysa Anderson deposited a 1-0 pitch over the left field fence for her fifth of the season as Morgan stranded eight Conquistadors on the base paths.
Morgan's program record performance included striking out three in two of the frames and a pair in each of the other five innings. Eclipsing her career high in the sixth in striking out three straight to strand a leadoff double, Morgan canned two more in the seventh to surpass Madison Didion's fourteen strikeouts set on March 11, 2016, coincidentally also against the Conquistadors in Dodge City.
Next up on the schedule is the second matchup of the year with Garden City, originally scheduled for Wednesday but due to forecasted weather, the doubleheader is pushed back a day for a 1:00 p.m. first pitch on Thursday in Garden City Community College. Barton's next home game comes Saturday in a 1:00 p.m. hosting of Seward County Community College.