HESSTON, Kansas — The Cloud County Community College baseball team began a stretch of six straight non-conference games with a bang, sweeping a road doubleheader against Hesston College on Tuesday with a 6-2 win in Game One and a 16-6 slugfest in Game Two.

Cloud County (19-23 overall, 7-17 KJCCC West) recorded 23 hits between the two games in what was a much-needed slump buster for the T-Birds after struggling to drive in runs last weekend in a four-game set against Colby Community College.

"It was a great response by our guys because we had really struggled to score the last two weeks and it cost us some conference games," said Cloud County head coach, Eric Gilliland. "I thought we had a different mentality (Tuesday). We had a really good practice Monday, and we produced a lot of runs in a lot of different ways."

The T-Birds produced 10 of those hits in their 6-2 win in Game One, three of which came from freshman outfielder Ryan Simons as he went 3-for-5 with a pair of RBI.

After falling behind 1-0 early, Cloud answered back with three runs in the second on a two-run single by sophomore Jacob Grady and a RBI single from Tucker Catlett.

The T-Birds would maintain a 4-2 lead until the seventh inning when the duo of Catlett and Simons drove in two more runs, courtesy of an RBI walk by Catlett and a single from Simons.

Sophomore right-hander David Johns picked up the win after going four solid innings, allowing two runs, one earned on four hits, while striking out three. Freshman righty KJ Moreno polished off the victory with three scoreless innings of relief. He allowed just one hit and one walk and struck out two.

"He was lights out for three innings," said Gilliland, referring to Moreno. "It was one of the good things about (Tuesday) was, with us needing guys in our bullpen to step up down the stretch, we got to look at a lot of guys. I hope KJ has turned a corner because he looked really good today."

Cloud County kept rolling into Game Two as it put the Larks away early, scoring 15 of its 16 runs in the first three innings.

Eight different T-Birds collected hits, led by sophomore catcher Jose Chacin, who was 3-for-3 with an RBI and two runs scored.

Catlett, Simons and freshman outfielder Matt Bondarchuk each added two hits apiece. Simons and Catlett also each had three runs driven in, tying them with freshman Brett Fields in the nightcap.

Cloud County will look to build off Tuesday's momentum when it returns home — the first true home games since March 18-19 — to face Metropolitan Community College—Longview.

"I think we're all ready to play at home. We've been on the road for quite awhile now," Gilliland said. "It'll be nice to sleep in our own beds and not have to wake up early to get on the bus. Longview is pretty good and always a scary team. We have to keep the same mentality as if it is a league weekend because Longview will be just as good as the teams in our league."

The three-game series begins at 4 p.m. on Friday and will conclude with a doubleheader on Saturday, scheduled for 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. at Lee Doyen Field.