Dodge City baseball hit the road traveling to Concordia to wrap up the regular season with a doubleheader with Cloud County and finished the regular season matching their win total from last year behind a split. The Conquistadors dropped game one 9-1 but bounced back with a 12-9 win in the second contest.
The Conqs are now 28-28 on the season and finish 18-14 in conference play marking the most conference wins since 2017.
The split also means the Conqs will finish fifth place in the KJCCC West standings and travel to Kansas City Kansas Community College next week for a first-round Region playoff series.
Game 1 – Lost 9-1 at Cloud County
The Conqs would fall behind early to open the day on the road and continually see their hill to climb to get back in the game grow over the course of the contest. Cloud County opened the scoring in the top of the first inning working a pair of base runners around to take a 2-0 lead. The Thunderbirds of Cloud County then added another with an inside-the-park home run in the second making it 3-0. In the top of the fourth, the Conqs broke through as Brian Hallum pushed a double into right-center field and scored Alex Galyean but that would be all the runs the Conqs would muster. Cloud County countered in the bottom of the fourth with two more runs and then four more in the sixth to guide them past the Conqs 9-1.
In the loss the Conqs managed just six hits as Galyean finished 1-4 with a run scored, Hallum was 1-2 with an RBI and double, while Carter Olson, Cooper Schneider, Ethan Hewell, and Donnie Rhyne each had a hit. Michael DeBattista took the loss tossing 3.1 innings of action.
Game 2 – Won 12-9 at Cloud County
It was a totally different contest in the series finale from the first game of the doubleheader as it featured much more offense for the Conqs. The Conqs would jump on the board early capitalizing on an error to help score the first two runs of the game and then a Nick Mesquita RBI single brought in another run and another error by Cloud County would make it 4-0 Dodge City. Cloud County would tighten the game back up with one run in each of the first, second, and third innings to make it 4-3. In the fourth the Conqs pushed the lead back out as Cole Babich belted a solo home run and then in the fifth Olson hit a three-run home run to make it 8-3. But in the bottom of the fifth, it was the Thunderbirds drawing within one run again as they scored three more runs making it 8-7.
In the sixth Jordan Rodriguez notched an RBI single and Galyean reached on an error to bring in a run to give the Conqs a 10-7 advantage but once again Cloud County would get on the board this time getting just one run in the eighth. In the ninth, the Conqs added some insurance as Carson Wright blasted a solo home run and Peter Tassler recorded an RBI single. The bottom of the ninth saw Cloud County mount a comeback but the Conqs would hold the Thunderbirds to just one run and snatch the 12-9 win in the series finale for the series split.
Galyean had the lone multi-hit game for the Conqs going 2-5 with two runs scored, while Olson was 1-2 with two runs scored, a walk, three RBI, and a home run. Babich added a 1-4 game with two runs scored, a walk, and a home run and Wright was 1-1 with a solo home run. Schneider chipped in a 1-4 game with a run scored and a double.
On the mound, Michael Lopez worked three innings as the starter for the Conqs while Caden Norman had an effective 3.2 innings out of the bullpen to earn the win giving up just two runs on one hit, three walks, and struck out two. Jayden Minter recorded the final out and earned the save.
