Buffs’ baseball blanked by Liberal, 2-0

Story Credit: GCHS Athletics

Just three weeks earlier in Garden City, the Buffaloes’ baseball team of Garden City High School swept the Liberal Redskins in a Western Athletic Conference doubleheader.

On Tuesday, playing a single game in Liberal, the Buffaloes struggled offensively that resulted in a 2-0 shutout for the Redskins.

The loss dropped the Buffs to 8-7 overall and 5-2 in the WAC while Liberal improved to 6-8 overall and now 1-3 in the WAC. It was their third straight loss after dropping weekend games at home to Manhattan and Junction City.

The Buffs will travel to Scott City on Friday for a doubleheader against the Beavers, with Game 1 starting at 4 p.m.

The Buffs were held to just two hits by Liberal hurler Kye Morris. Morris went the full seven innings for the Redskins. He walked just one and recorded six strikeouts. He faced 24 batters, just three over the minimum for the seven innings.

“It was just a case of us being way out ahead swinging the bats,” head coach Lance Allred said. “We just couldn’t get anything going.”

Gavin Wells got his single in the fifth but was stranded after reaching with one out. Culden Plankenhorn got the other hit, a single, in the seventh, but was left on base along with Wells, who walked with two outs.

“Morris threw a lot of breaking balls and fooled us a lot,” Allred said. “The base runners we did have were all spread out so we never really had a good chance to score runs.”

The loss overshadowed a strong pitching effort by Eli Steinmetz, who went 4.1 innings, yielding just three hits, 1 run (unearned), walked none and struck out five. Drew Strecker pitched two-thirds of an inning, giving up one hit and a run, walking one and striking out one. Jakobe Rathbun tossed the final inning, striking out all three of the batters he faced.

Liberal got single runs in the first (unearned run) and sixth to get all the runs it needed to pick up its first WAC triumph.

———

Western Athletic Conference

Tuesday, April 21

At Liberal

LIBERAL 2, GARDEN CITY 0

Garden City…000…000…0…–…0…2…3

Liberal…100…010…x…–…2…5…0

Pitching—Garden City: Steinmetz, Strecker (5), Rathbun (6) and C. Plankenhorn); Liberal: Morris and Betts. 2B–Liberal (Betts).