On Hall of Fame weekend, Allen Community College’s Red Devil baseball team earned a split of its Jayhawk Eastern Division four-game series with Highland Community College’s Scotties.
The Red Devils dropped two one-run decisions on Saturday. In between those games, members of the inaurgual class of the Red Devil Diamond Club Baseball Hall of Fame were introduced.
On Sunday the Red Devils played better defensively and locked down two victories over the Scotties. Allen won 7- 1 behind a complete-game performance by starting pitcher Jared Sterling. It rallied for a 3-1 win in the second game.
The 2-2 split leaves the Red Devils at 13-19 in Jayhawk East play with one more four-game series to play. That is this coming Saturday and Sunday at Neosho County Community College in Chanute.
Allen is 20-28 overall. The Red Devils host Longview Community College Wednesday.
Sterling limited the Scotties to one run on five hits and one hit batter. He struck out five batters while the Red Devils only had one defensive error in Sunday’s opener.
In Saturday’s opener behind sophomore ace Zak Mickens, the Red Devils committed five errors that led to three unearned runs. Mickens went the distance on the mound and took the loss. He gave up eight hits, walked two and struck out five.
Allen led 3-2 after five innings but couldn’t hold the lead, The Scotties scored two runs on two hits and an Allen error in the sixth to win 4-3.
Garrett Rasch’s double brought in the tying run in the third and Caleb Wilburn had an RBI single in the inning to put ACC up 2-1. Each team scored a run in the fifth. Jaren Moorman and Tim Lewis had back-to-back bunt singles, followed by a sacrifice bunt by Rasch and an RBI ground-out by Travis Stafford.
Saturday’s second game featured a slugfest as each team racked up 12 hits. The Red Devils again gave up a lead and lost 6-5. They were up 5-3 at the end of three.
Tanner Lee, Lucas Westervelt and Bill Wiginton pitched for the Red Devils. Lee got the loss, going four innings.
Wilburn gave Allen the lead in the bottom of the first when he delivered a three-run blast over the center field fence. Wilburn also had a single in the game. Lewis hit three singles. Rasch and Nathan Russell each had two base hits. Hitting a single each were Stafford, Kyle Johnston and Cody Amerine.
The Red Devils held onto the lead in Sunday’s first game. They had 12 singles in the game and scored two runs in the second and three in the third to lead 5-1. Allen added a run in the fourth and one in the fifth for the 7-1 final.
Sterling had command of the game on the mound. Lewis, Russell, Stafford and Johnston provided control at the plate with two singles each. Wilburn, Amerine, Kyle Fultz and Moorman had a single apiece.
Highland used a single and a triple to score a run in the second inning of Sunday’s second game. That put the Scotties up 1-0.
