Bryce Hirayama
Student Sports Media
The Butler baseball team swept Dodge City in a four-game series taking place from Friday, April 26 through Saturday, April 27 with two games at home and two away.
In the first game, the team won 11- 1 in five innings. They scored five of their 11 runs in the very first inning.
The Grizzlies came out hot with two home runs by Freshman Austin Portner and Sophomore Patrick Bethea.
They extended their lead in the 2nd and 3rd innings off a sacrifice fly by Sophomore Javier Pena and off a fielder’s choice by Sophomore Austin Portner.
The Grizzlies lead never waivered as they continued to add to their lead up until the end of the 5th off RBI singles from Sophomore’s Colby Deaville and Patrick Base. Zach Bravo pitched all five innings of the game. He allowed four hits and one run over his five innings. He also had five strikeouts.
In the second game of the series, the game itself was a lot closer than the previous one, as the Butler Grizzlies edged out the Conquistador’s by a narrow margin of one run in the 9-run bout, which finished 9-8 in favor of Butler.
Through the first three innings, the Conquistadors jumped out to a 3-1 lead. At the bottom of the 3rd, the Butler Grizzlies tied it up with a two run double by Base.
In the bottom of the 4th the Grizzlies extended their league by two off a home run by Portner and a double by Base.
The 5th was a scoreless affair. But in the 6th, Dodge City retook the lead with back to back home runs, changing the score again to 7-5 in favor of Dodge City.
In the bottom of the 6th, the Grizzlies took the lead and it never waivered after a single by Freshman Noah Argenta and off a groundout by Bethea.
Sophomore David Henderson pitched for the Grizzlies. He pitched for five innings, allowing for three runs and seven hits and had five strikeouts.
Butler returned to form in the 3rd game of the series beating Dodge City 10-1. The Grizzlies jumped out to a 4-0 from a double from Sophomore Javier Pena and a groundout from Freshman Colby Standard and a throwing error off Bethea’s hit.
Dodge City scored their only run in the 3rd off a single. The lead for the Grizzlies never changed as they added on to it with hits by Pena and Jack Maki. The game was capped off by a homer in the 5th by Bethea.
Freshman Dillan Janak pitched all seven innings for the Grizzlies and allowed four hits and one run. He also finished with four strikeouts.
In the final game of the series, Butler beat Dodge City 7-6 in 11 innings. The Grizzlies jumped out to 2-0 lead in the first off a single from Sophomore Jack Maki. In the bottom of the 3rd the Conquistadors took the lead by scoring four runs off two doubles and a single.
The Grizzlies retook the lead in the 4th and 5th innings off sacrifice flies and groundouts, as well as an RBI single from Sophomore Colby Deaville, making the lead 6-4 Butler.
Dodge City tied the game up in the 9th inning after a 7th inning RBI single and another RBI single in the 9th.
Butler won the game in the top of the 11th off a single by Pena, capping off the sweep of Dodge City.
The Butler Grizzlies next take on Garden City in a two game series at Garden City on Thursday, May 2 and finish their season off against another two-game series against Garden City at home on Saturday, May 4.