Butler Baseball ends regular season with split against Pratt; finishes season second in Jayhawk West

Story by Wyatt Ebersole 

The Butler Baseball team picked up a split in their final conference double-header of the season with the Pratt Beavers, winning game one 19-2 in five innings, and dropping game two 14-11. The Grizzlies end the regular season 36-20 and 21-11 in conference play. The Beavers end the regular season 24-31 and 12-20 in conference play. Despite the split, the Grizzlies will host a first round playoff series next week and have locked up a second place finish in the Jayhawk West Conference.

Game One

The Grizzly bats were hot to start the day, as they put up a monster 12 runs in the first three innings, to pull away early and win game one 14-6. 

Hayden Dyer got the scoring rolling with a solo shot to center field on the fifth pitch of the day. Brock Lummus added an RBI single three batters later, then Cole Murrell drew a bases-loaded walk, and Brock Toothaker added an RBI single to make it 5-0 Grizzlies with only one out. After another bases-loaded walk, Dyer came to the plate for the second time in the inning and crushed a no-doubt grand slam to centerfield to blow the game open and make it 9-0 Grizzlies after just the first inning. Brock Kuehler joined in on the home run fun in the second inning with a two-run blast of his own to centerfield giving the Grizzlies an 11-0 lead. Both teams brought two runs home in the third, keeping the Grizzlies up by 11 runs through three innings. The runs continued to come in for the Grizzlies in the fourth, as Dyer and Garrett Fager drew back-to-back walks, and then Alan Benhardt sent a ball well over the fence in right-center to give the Grizzlies their second grand slam of the day and a 19-2 lead. Reliever Zach Murkin kept the Beavers off the board in the fifth to give the Grizzlies the 19-2, run-rule win. 

Dyer was 3-4 in the game. Tallying six RBIs with two home runs, both in the first inning. Alan Benhardt was also 3-4, recording four RBIs, all on his grand slam in the fourth.  

Game Two

The Beavers flipped the script on the Grizzlies to start game two, as they scored four runs in the top of the first to give them an early lead. Hayden Dyer hit his third homer of the day in the bottom of the first, but the Beavers answered with three more in their half of the second to go up 7-1. Fager and Hudson both hit solo home runs in the third, but the Beavers again found answers in the next inning, extending their lead to 10-3 going into the bottom of the fourth. Zach Brink came out of the bullpen and was able to quiet the Beaver bats a bit, allowing the Grizzlies to make some inroads into the deficit. Murrell scored on a balk and Dyer drove in Anibal Rivera on an RBI double in the fourth and Toothaker drove in a run in the fifth to make it just 10-6 Beavers through five. The Grizzlies drew closer in the sixth, scoring two runs on a strange bunt and double error play that made it just 10-8 Beavers through six. In the seventh, Rivera crushed one to center to make it a one-run game, and then Hudson smashed a home run to straight-away center to give the Grizzlies their first lead of the game. The lead was short lived however,n as the Beavers hit a solo homer in their half of the eighth and then followed it with a two-run shot in the ninth to retake the lead. The Grizzlies got the tying run to the plate, but couldn't make the magic happen 

The Grizzlies finish the regular season at 36-19 and will host in the first round of the Region VI Tournament against the #7 seed in the KJCCC East.