ARKANSAS CITY, Kan. – Putting on an offensive display in the first inning of the series opener, the Cloud County Community College baseball team would put together a 12-3 seven-inning upset of number-10 nationally ranked Cowley College in game one before falling by a score of 8-4 in game two to split the first two games of a four-game series in Arkansas City, Kansas on Thursday, March 4th.

The split sees Cloud County move to 6-5 overall on the season while the Tigers drop their first game of the season while being held to just 11 runs on the day after averaging 20.5 runs per contest in their first four games of the year and are now 5-1 overall.
 
Game One:
It wouldn't take much time at all for Cloud County to jump out on top of Cowley early as CCCC would stay disciplined at the plate in the top of the first inning to score eight runs on seven hits while drawing four walks and scoring six runs with two outs. The first four batters of the game would all reach for Cloud County as Ian Riley would deliver with a two-RBI single before Williams Camacho-Soto would hit a sacrifice fly to drive home Kayden Beauregard to make things 3-0. The two-out side of the inning would begin with a Garrett Redden walk as Jack Correll, Adler Pierson, Noah Olson, and Jaden Parsons, and Beauregard would all come up with hits to extend the inning and put Cloud County up big before the Tigers would get a chance on offense.
 
The T-Birds would hold Cowley scoreless in the bottom of the first while stranding runners on the corners as the Tigers would see the inning end with back-to-back strikeouts from starter Kolby Dougan.
 
 A scoreless second and third innings would allow Cloud County to maintain their lead heading into the fourth as Cowley would manage to turn a leadoff walk into a run on a wild pitch. Things would then remain an 8-1 contest until the top of the sixth when Cloud County would get a two-run blast from Redden to score Beauregard and put CCCC up 10-1 as Trevor Stevens would manage to drive in Correll later in the inning to put the T-Birds up 10 runs.
 
Cowley would turn two hits into a pair of runs in the bottom half of the inning as pinch hitters Blake Mitche and Joel Benes would finally spark the Tiger offense with Benes hitting a two-run homer to get back two of the three runs they allowed in the top of the inning. Cloud County would tack on one additional run in the top of the seventh for good measure as the lead would never be in jeopardy with the T-Birds closing things out and taking the nine-run decision in the opener.
 
Eight of Cloud County's 13 hits in the contest would come courtesy of the top four batters in the T-Bird lineup as both Parsons and Beauregard would collect three hits while Parsons would drive in two runs and also draw one walk. Four different players would be responsible for driving in two runs each as Noah Olson, Ian Riley, and Garrett Redden would also have a two-RBI outing.
 
Another strong outing on the mound from Dougan would see the freshman toss five innings and allow just one run on four hits while striking out six batters. The Topeka, Kansas native would also induce five fly outs and three ground outs while not allowing more than one hit in any inning. Jayden Payne would close out the game for Cloud County, throwing two innings and allowing two runs on four hits while facing 10 total batters.
 
GAME TWO:
Runs would be at much more of a premium for most of game two as Cloud County would plate two runs in the top of the first with a Parsons RBI double and Camacho-Soto RBI single staking CCCC to an early lead. Cowley would get a run back in the bottom of the inning by taking advantage of a fielding error by the T-Birds in the bottom of the inning to cut the lead in half before tying things up at 2-2 off a wild pitch in the bottom of the second.
 
The score would then remain at 2-2 until the bottom of the fourth as a hit batter and walk would come back to hurt Cloud County to allow Cowley to use a sacrifice fly and RBI double to take their first lead of the afternoon. Cowley's lead would be short-lived however as Cloud County would use a Tiger error and two hit batters to pull back even at 4-4 to send things to the bottom of the fifth.
 
Pitching would then take over for the remainder of the fifth and into the sixth inning as the two teams would muster just one hit in the span as neither team would be able to find a go-ahead run. A Cowley leadoff double in the bottom of the seventh would allow the Tigers to use an RBI single to reclaim the lead at 5-4 before going on to plate three additional runs in the bottom of the eighth which would be more than enough in the final stages of the contest as Cloud County would be limited to just one hit in their final six outs.
 
The T-Birds would outhit Cowley 9-7 in game two but be unable to come up with clutch hits with runners on base as 10 CCCC runners would be stranded in the game. Nine strikeouts would also prove to be a problem for the T-Birds as only Parsons and Correll would manage to record extra-base hits in the contest.
 
A four-inning outing from starter Evan Wilde would lead to a no-decision on the day after allowing four runs (three earned) on three hits while striking out three. Patrick Kennedy (0.2 innings) and Connor Woods (one inning) would also see action on the mound Cloud County along with Aaron Hayes who would be tagged with the loss after allowing one run on two hits in 2.1 innings of work.  
 
What's Next?
Cloud County and Cowley will close out their four-game split series on Saturday, March 6th with a 1 p.m. doubleheader from Lee Doyen Field in Concordia, Kansas. Both games of Saturday's doubleheader will be live streamed as CCCC will play their final home games prior to the start of Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference play which opens up next Thursday.