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Streak ends at 16; Moddelmog gets 200th win
Allen County put an end to Fort Scott Community College's winning streak in the second game of a Jayhawk Conference-Eastern Division doubleheader at Lions Field Saturday afternoon. But some saw this as a good sign.
If you believe in the theory that a team shouldn't carry a long winning streak into the postseason, then Allen County's 10-6 win in eight innings was a good thing -- if a loss can ever be a good thing. Fort Scott won its 16th consecutive game in the opener, 8-5, but it was beginning to appear that the burden of maintaining the streak was becoming difficult to deal with.
"Like we told our kids, 'All good things come to an end,'" Fort Scott head coach Chris Moddelmog said. "These kids just keep battling and giving us a chance to win every day."
Going into Sunday's regular-season-ending twinbill at Independence, Moddelmog felt that the Greyhounds could play loose. They were already assured of home-field advantage in the first round of the Region VI Tournament and couldn't be seeded lower than third in the tourney. With a little help from Highland on Monday, the 'Hounds could have moved up into the No. 2 seed.
After Johnson County swept Independence Saturday, the Cavaliers moved into a tie with Fort Scott for second place in the division. But Johnson holds the tiebreaker -- It split its season series with division champion Cowley while the 'Hounds were swept by the Tigers -- so the 'Hounds were effectively third in the East.
Fourth-place Kansas City was four games behind Fort Scott and Johnson at the time, fighting to keep home-field advantage out of the hands of fifth-place Allen County.
Fort Scott and Indy split Sunday's twinbill with the Pirates taking game one 6-1 and the Greyhounds taking the second, 4-2. This put Fort Scott's record at 25-11 in the division and 35-18 overall. Johnson County was in second place at 24-10, 32-15, going into a make-up doubleheader at Highland Monday afternoon.
Johnson County won the first game 7-1, clinching second place no matter what the outcome of the second game was due to its tiebreaker advantage.
Sunday's second game was Moddelmog's 200th win as a head coach. He has won 170 games in five seasons at Fort Scott.
"The record does not mean much today, but I'm sure it will in a few years looking back," Moddelmog said.
The bottom six teams in the Western Division were within five games of each other going into Sunday and the outcome of weekend play was a three-way tie for sixth in the division. Garden City had the edge going into the weekend with four games at Cloud County. The Broncbusters, sixth at the time, only needed to win a couple of the games against the Thunderbirds to finish sixth. Instead, Cloud won all four games.
That opened the door for Dodge City to finish sixth but the Conquistadors lost all four games it played with Butler over the weekend (which also allowed Butler to move from seventh to fourth and earn home-field advantage in the first round). All that saw Garden, Dodge and Cloud finish with identical 12-20 conference records.
According to what can be seen on the Jayhawk Conference Web site, Dodge won the tiebreakers, going 6-2 against Cloud and Garden. Then Cloud, with its sweep of Garden, got the seventh seed.
If this is the way the tiebreakers actually worked out, then the Greyhounds will host Dodge City this weekend. The first two games of the series will be played as a doubleheader at 1 p.m. Saturday. The third game, if it's needed, will at 1 p.m. Sunday. All post-season games are nine innings.
Saturday: Fort Scott 8-6, Allen County 5-10.
Allen County (19-16, 26-21) used three doubles in the first inning to jump out to a 3-0 led off Fort Scott pitcher Ryan Daniel. But the 'Hounds got one of them back in the bottom half of the inning on Brandt Barnes' solo home run.
The Greyhounds pounced Red Devil starter Jake Hosey in the third inning, getting five runs. Catcher Brandon Davis led off with a walk and Barnes walked with one out. Jason Houston singled to load the bases. Trevor Geist grounded into a fielder's choice but Allen's shortstop chose to make the tougher throw to third instead of getting sure outs at either second or first. The throw was a bad one and all runners were safe with Davis scoring.
Travis Cruz beat a two-out slow roller to shortstop and Barnes scored, tying the game at 3-3. Cullen Baxter followed with a bases-clearing double, which Allen's right fielder lost against the clouds somehow and let land several feet behind him. That made it 6-3 in Fort Scott's favor.
Allen County got a run in the fourth but Barnes hit a two-run bomb to right in the bottom of the inning to boost the Greyhound lead to 8-4.
The Red Devils got a run in the top of the sixth and had two runners on with two out before Daniel induced Scott Hood to line out to second. Daniels finished up in the seventh without much trouble and finished with six strikeouts while allowing four earned runs on nine hits and two walks.
Barnes and Baxter were each two for three at the plate for Fort Scott. Each of them drove in three runs. Dillon Hazlett was three for four for Allen County.
The Red Devils eked out six hits in the top of the first inning of the second game, each one seemingly falling in just the right place, either right up the middle or in the area of the outfield too shallow for the outfielders to reach and to deep for the infielders to get to. Those hits and a Greyhound error produced four runs.
Fort Scott didn't get on the board until Daniel -- the designated hitter in this game -- belted a solo home run in the bottom of the second.
Allen County scored once in the top of the third to make its lead 5-1. But the Greyhounds countered with four in the bottom of the inning to tie it.
Davis led off the inning with a double to left and scored on Zach Caldwell's single to right-center. Caldwell stole second and scored on Houston's single to left. Geist doubled to left and Daniel drew a walk, loading the bases.
Cruz executed the suicide squeeze bunt so well that not only did Houston score, Cruz was able to reach base as Allen County had no play to make. That forced Allen County to pull starting pitcher Ethan Barnett after only 2 1/3 innings. Geist tied the score, 5-5, when the relief pitcher threw a ball that got by the catcher. But Jacob Kraft was then able to get out the inning with two infield popups.
Each team scored a run in the sixth, the Greyhounds getting theirs when Baxter's sacrifice fly to right brought Geist home.
Both teams had chances to win in regulation. Allen County had a runner on with two out in the top of the inning and Josh Ward hit a deep fly to center. But it fell just short of the wall with Barnes there to make the inning-ending catch.
Fort Scott had two runners on with nobody out. Houston walked, then Geist bunted. Both runners were safe but Houston saw third was uncovered after the bunt and tried to get to third. Unfortunately, Allen County's shortstop hustled over to cover and tagged Houston out. Then Geist was caught stealing and Kraft struck out Daniel to end the inning.
"I probably ran us out of the game being a little too aggressive," Moddelmog said. "But that's what's got us to where we are. We play the way we play. We got behind in both games and it just kind of caught up with us. We ran out of gas there at the end."
After two innings of one-hit relief work by left-hander Garret Woerman, Moddelmog brought in his other lefty closer, Eldon Little. Unfortunately, it seemed that everything that could go wrong for Little did go wrong and the Devils scored four times on five hits and two Greyhound errors in the top of the eighth.
"We have to just keep plugging away," Moddelmog said. "We have two big ones (Sunday) and then we see who we host next weekend and that's when they start counting. That's when you need to go on a winning streak. That's what I told them -- we need the winning streak to start next Saturday."
Sunday: Independence 6-2, Fort Scott 1-4.
Two Independence pitchers combined to hold the Greyhounds to five hits in the opener. Baxter had two of them. The Pirates (17-19, 23-26) led 4-0 after four innings.
The second game went eight innings with Fort Scott scoring twice in the top of the right. Geist, who went to pitch in the sixth, emerged as the winner after holding the Pirates to one hit. He walked two but struck out two.
Joel Ricketts started and allowed two runs on five hits and two walks while striking out three.
Daniel, Cruz and Houston each had two hits.
"We've given ourselves a chance, at the end of the year, to be where we want to be," Modeelmog said, "which is hosting the first-round playoff and then getting to Wichita (next weekend) and seeing if we can make a run for (the Juco World Series in) in Grand Junction (Colo.) Those are our goals and we'll see what happens."
Game One
Allen County...... 300 101 0 -- 5 9 1
Fort Scott.......... 105 200 x -- 8 6 1
WP -- Daniel. LP -- Hosey.
HR -- Fort Scott: Barnes 2 (1st inn., none on, one out; 4th inn., one on, one out).
Allen County... 401 010 04 -- 10 17 0
Fort Scott....... 014 010 00 -- 6 12 3
WP -- Kraft. LP -- Little.
HR -- Allen County: Cobb (8th inn., none on, one out). Fort Scott: Daniel (2nd inn., none on, one out).
Game One
Fort Scott.......... 000 001 0 -- 1 5 3
Independence... 002 202 x -- 6 12 1
WP -- Branch. LP -- Johnston.
HR -- none.
Fort Scott....... 000 110 02 -- 4 10 1
Independence. 010 010 00 -- 2 8 1
WP -- Geist. LP -- McGill.
HR -- none.