Tiger baseball team tosses two more shutouts in four-game sweep of Labette

The shutouts continue to roll in for the No. 10-ranked Cowley College baseball team as the Tigers held Labette Community College scoreless in both games of Saturday's home doubleheader. Cowley defeated Labette 2-0 in game one before blasting the Cardinals 21-0 in game two.

The Tigers' shutout Labette three times in the four-game series sweep and have posted shutouts in four of its past five games.

"It's good to see the guys on the mound are improving and learning to work ahead in the count," Cowley head coach Darren Burroughs said.

Cowley, winners of five games in a row, is now 32-6 overall and 19-3 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division. With Saturday's wins, the Tigers have pulled even with conference-leading Johnson County (21-3) in the loss column. Labette, losers of 13 games in a row, falls to 6-28 overall and 4-20 in the conference.

Freshman Grant Adler struck out 11 and did not walk a batter in the 2-0 win of game one. Adler allowed six hits in six innings as he improved his record to 5-0 on the season. The right-hander lowered his earned run average to 2.39.

"Grant has been consistent for us all year and out-dueled their number one pitcher," Burroughs said.

Isaac Stebens pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning to preserve the 2-0 win and record his third save of the season.

Cowley scored a run without the benefit of a hit in the bottom of the third inning thanks to three walks and an error. Felix Chenier-Rondeau singled leading off the bottom of the fourth inning and scored on a triple by Trey DeGarmo to cap the scoring.

Cardinals' starting pitcher Bryson Van Sickle (2-3) struck out seven and allowed one unearned run in four innings of work as the Tigers were out-hit 6-4 in the victory.

However, Cowley's bats came to life in game two as half of its 18 hits went for extra bases in the 21-0 win.

"We battled against a good pitcher in the first game and thought we swung the bats better in game two," Burroughs said.

Chenier-Rondeau had two of Cowley's eight doubles and went 4-for-5 with six runs batted in.

Andrew Williams also doubled twice and drove in three runs.

Freshman Logan Kimbro started on the mound for the Tigers and allowed only one hit in four innings. Kimbro struck out eight and walked one to improve to 2-0 on the season.

Cole Miller, Miguel Fulgencio, and Jerome Tylicki followed Kimbro on the mound and combined to record Cowley's eighth shutout of the season.

Cowley will play a doubleheader at Allen Community College Tuesday beginning at 1 p.m. The Red Devils are 23-13 overall and 10-10 in the Jayhawk East.

"Every doubleheader remains big for us," Burroughs said. "We will try to be consistent in all three phases of the game."

Score by inning:

Game one                   R H E

Labette 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 – 0 6 2

Cowley 0 0 1 1 0 0 x – 2 4 0

Game two                    R H E

Labette 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 – 0 3 0

Cowley 4 5 3 5 4 0 x – 21 18 0