Johnson County rallies to stun Tigers 9-6 in district tourney

In a battle of the top-two teams in the Jayhawk East, the No. 4-seed Cowley College baseball team could not hold onto an early 5-0 lead in a 9-6 loss to the No. 2-seed Johnson County Cavaliers in the semifinals of the Plains District Baseball Tournament held Thursday at Dean Evans Field in Salina, KS.

Johnson County (49-11) advances to play in Friday's title game at 4 p.m.

Cowley (44-11) must play third-seed Cloud County (47-16) on Friday at 1 p.m., and if they win, they will face Johnson County again at 4 p.m. and need to defeat the Cavaliers twice to win the district title.

On Thursday, Cowley got solo home runs from Logan Smith, Logan Groh, and Weston Thomas to lead 5-0 after three innings.

Tiger starting pitcher Tallen Bagwell tossed four shutout innings before running into trouble in the bottom of the fifth inning. The Cavaliers would chase Bagwell from the game and score four runs to pull within 5-4.

Cowley appeared to stabilize things when Seth Dandridge singled home Drake Fittro to increase the Tigers' lead to 6-4 in the top of the seventh inning. However, the Cavaliers scored five runs off a pair of Tiger relievers in the bottom of the seventh inning to lead 9-6.

Cowley would strand the bases loaded in the eighth inning and had the tying run at the plate in the ninth before Thomas grounded into a double play to end the game.

If Cowley were to win two games on Friday, they would force a final game against Johnson County on Saturday at 1 p.m. One more loss at the district tourney and the Tigers' season would be over.

Score by inning:                 R H E

Cowley  0 3 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 – 6 8 2

Johnson 0 0 0 0 4 0 5 0 x – 9 11 1