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CONCORDIA, Kan. – After surviving a winner-take-all game three last Friday to advance, the number-five seed Cloud County Community College baseball team will resume the NJCAA Plains District Tournament with a 7 PM game to close out the first day of action against fourth-seeded Cowley Community College at Eck Stadium in Wichita, Kansas on Wednesday, May 17th.
Advancing to the eight-team, double-elimination bracket portion of the Plains District Tournament for the third time in program history, Cloud County will look to do something that has only happened once since 2020 which is to have another Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference foe hand Cowley a postseason defeat. The T-Birds and Tigers have met once previously this season, with Cloud County building a 6-0 lead after three innings and an 8-3 lead heading into the eighth before fending off a Cowley rally that would see the game-tying run stranded at third and go-ahead run stranded at second on a full-count strikeout to end the game and preserve an 8-7 CCCC victory.
With the tournament returning to Eck Stadium on the campus of Wichita State University for the first time since 2019, Cloud County will look to improve upon their previous two appearances in this stage of the Plains District Tournament with the T-Birds going 1-2 in both prior instances (2019, 2021). The matchup on Wednesday evening will be a rematch of Cloud County's first game during the 2019 rendition of the tournament when Cowley would take an 8-0, seven-inning win over the T-Birds in their first game in program history at the double-elimination bracket portion of the tournament.
The T-Birds are led by a balanced mix of both offense and defense, averaging nearly 8 runs per contest while outscoring opponents by 179 runs this season through 58 games. Holding a 37-21 record following a third-place finish in the KJCCC West Division, Cloud County earned a 2-1 series victory over Coffeyville Community College in a best-of-three series last week by taking game one 10-4 and game three 7-3 while dropping a 1-0 decision in game two of the series.
Cowley had to survive a scare of their own last week as the Tigers dropped their first postseason game played in the state of Kansas since May 10, 2019, to have an 18-game winning streak in NJCAA Plains District Tournament games snapped against the Beavers with a 10-9 loss to go to a winner-take-all game three. In the series finale last Friday, Cowley would jump out an early lead before seeing Pratt score two in the seven and two in the eighth to take an 8-7 lead before forcing extra-innings with a run in the bottom of the eighth to eventually walk off PCC in the bottom of the 10th. Cowley has won the past three NJCAA Plains District Tournaments dating back to 2019 (2020 was canceled due to COVID-19) and five of the past six contested tournaments dating back to 2016. Last year would see the Tigers earn walk-off victories in all four games played by Cowley in Manhattan, Kansas to advance to the JUCO World Series where the Tigers would fall in their opening game to Central Florida 8-2 before reeling off four consecutive elimination-game victories to make the national title game and fall to Central Arizona by a score of 4-2.
Prior to the Cloud County vs Cowley nightcap on Wednesday, six other teams will kick play off throughout the day with action beginning at Eck Stadium at 10 AM featuring a game against third-seeded Butler against sixth-seeded Fort Scott. Despite seeing four of the eight opening-round best-of-three series get pushed to a winner-take-all game three, all eight host schools advanced to the bracket portion of the tournament. Other games taking place on Wednesday will see seventh-seeded Seward County play second-seeded and number-two nationally-ranked Johnson County Community College at 1 PM while sixth-ranked and top-overall seed Barton will begin their tournament at 4 PM with a game against eighth-seeded Kansas City Kansas Community College.
All games throughout the week will be broadcasted live on the KJCCC Sports Network with a pay-per-view charge for each contest. Games will begin at 10 AM each of the first three days (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) with Saturday scheduled for a 1 PM start as part of a two-game schedule with Sunday being used as an if-necessary game 15 if both teams that advance to the championship game both have one loss after game 14.
Fans wanting to follow along to updates throughout the week can do so on the KJCCC twitter page (@KJCCCmedia) as well as
https://kjccc.org/sports/bsb/2022-23/2023_BSB_Regional. Box scores of each game as they are completed along with tournament statistics and updated brackets and other links to information from the games throughout the week will be posted to the KJCCC website for fans.
