Colby beats Garden City in game two

By Mike Pilosof

Photo by Adam Shrimplin

Garden City, KS-The Broncbusters inability to hit in Saturday's finale cost them dearly.

Jennifer Williams and Skylar Eidson each went yard, Allison Westbrook held Garden City to just three hits, and Colby doubled up the Broncbusters 4-2 at Tangeman Sports Complex.

"We needed to do a better job of stringing hits together," Schmeckpeper said. "That was our biggest struggle."

The Trojans grabbed the lead first when Laney Shireman ripped a two-out, RBI double in the first. But the Broncbusters responded just a half-inning later fueled Nya Chacon's run-scoring extra base hit that knotted the score.

From there, Garden City was held in check.

They went down in order in the second and failed to produce a hit in the third. Then in the fourth, Tara Reid singled with two outs only to have Micaela Mirabal ground out to third to end the inning.

And those missed opportunities eventually came back to haunt the brown and gold because in the fifth, Williams ripped Lacey Kearsley's 0-1 changeup over the wall in center. It was the second long ball of the day given up by the freshman hurler, who served up a two-run bomb to Eidson the inning before.

"The balls that they hit hard in the second game went over the fence," Schmeckpeper added. "That really hurt us."

The Broncbusters still had a chance in the bottom of the seventh after Alexis Maestretti homered with two outs. But McKayla Encinias couldn't keep the rally going, striking out on a 2-2 fastball.

Only Chacon, Reid and Maestretti scratched out hits while the rest of the team combined to go 0-for-17 at the plate. Kearsley threw 106 pitches, allowing four runs on six hits. She struck out seven and yielded two home runs.

Westbrook notched the win in the circle, giving up two runs on three hits in seven innings.