HAYS, Kansas — The Cloud County Community College baseball team concluded a four-game set against Seward County Community College on Sunday, splitting the final two games of what was both an encouraging and infuriating series for the T-Birds.

After dropping a pair of one-run heartbreakers on Friday — series split and played in Hays due to heavy rains during the week — Cloud County coasted to a 7-1 victory in Sunday's first game, before falling 13-4 to conclude the series in frustrating fashion.

"We played 13 innings of really quality baseball (Sunday) and got four really quality starts from our starting pitchers this weekend," said Cloud County head coach, Eric Gilliland. "Those are the positives to build on. But, overall, I really expected us to play better and get maybe 2-3 wins off a really solid Seward County team."

Sophomore left-handed pitcher John Stiger was tremendous in Game One as he pitched a two-hit complete game; the third straight complete game thrown by Cloud County (17-19 overall, 7-13 KJCCC) pitching during the weekend.

The southpaw struck out six and walked just one during his seven innings, with the lone blemish being a solo home run for Seward County (13-22 overall, 6-10 KJCCC) he surrendered in the second inning.

"We've been searching for even just one more good start on a weekend. We've gotten two good starts per weekend it seems like, so to get four was huge," Gilliland said. "John had three pitches working for strikes. He made some adjustments during his bullpen midweek and came out, got guys out early, and that helped his confidence."

Cloud County gave Stiger run support right off the bat, striking for four runs in the first inning on a two-run double by freshman Tauren Langley, and a two-run home run by sophomore Kolton Meyer on a backfoot slider that didn't get far enough inside to the left-hander.

It was Meyer's first of two home runs on the day, giving him the team lead with nine long balls this season.

The T-Birds added three insurance runs in the sixth inning to bump the lead to 7-1, courtesy of a Seward County error and RBI singles by outfielders Ryan Simons and Matt Bondarchuk.

In Game Two, Seward County flipped the script early as it tallied three quick runs in the second inning.

Sophomore right-hander Gabriel Jacobo settled down after that, limiting the Saints to one run over the next four innings, allowing the T-Birds to climb back within a run at 4-3.

Cloud County scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth, and had the bases loaded with one out, but were robbed of the equalizer when sophomore Jacob Grady hit a rocket to shortstop that turned into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

It was one of three double-plays turned by Seward County in Game Two.

"We couldn't get the big knock today with runners in scoring position. We grounded into double-plays and Seward found holes. That's just baseball sometimes," Gilliland said. "You can't really control where you hit the ball once you hit the ball hard. Then we kind of collapsed those last few innings and didn't play well."

Seward County pushed across two unearned runs in the top of the seventh inning, opening the floodgates as it outscored Cloud County 9-1 over the final three innings.

Bondarchuk finished with a team-high three hits (3-for-5), while Meyer, sophomore catcher Garrett Graveline, and freshman Enrique Gonzalez each added two hits apiece in Game Two.

Cloud County will look to bounce back this upcoming weekend when it travels to face Colby Community College in a four-game set Saturday and Sunday.

And while a 1-3 weekend was not what the T-Birds envision, they will head into their matchup against the Trojans playing arguably their best baseball of the season.

"We're right there. We're really close. A couple of breaks this series and we could be having a whole different conversation," Gilliland said.