EL DORADO — Allen County Community College’s Red Devils finished the regular season with a 9-8 win over host Butler Community College Tuesday. Butler is the No. 2 seed out of the Jayhawk Western Division in the Region VI tournament.
After several years of best–of-three playoff series to start the Region VI tournament, the teams have moved back to a sub-regional tournament format in 2010. The top two seeds from the Jayhawk Eastern Division and the Jayhawk West host double-elimination sub-regionals this weekend.
The Red Devils (26-22) were the No. 5 seed out the East and in the sub-regional hosted by Jayhawk East top seed Johnson County (42-12). The other two teams in the sub-regional are Pratt (18-35) and Hutchinson (30-21).
The Red Devils play Hutchinson, which is the No. 4 out of the West, at 9 a.m. Saturday in Overland Park. Johnson County takes on Pratt at 12:30 p.m.
A losers bracket game is at 4 p.m. Saturday. On Sunday the winners bracket final is at noon. The loser of that game takes on the winner of Saturday’s 4 o’clock game in the losers bracket final at 3 p.m.
The sub-regional championship game is noon Monday. A second game, if needed, is slated for 3 p.m.
There winners of the four sub-regional tournaments advance to the NJCAA Region VI tournament May 15-17 in Wichita.
“Splitting with Johnson County Monday and beating Butler twice in a week is a good sign for our team,” said Val McLean, ACCC head coach. “It gives us some momentum going into the playoffs.”
In their final regular season game, Allen County built an 8-1 lead through 31⁄2 innings. Butler scored five runs spanning the fourth through sixth innings to make it 8-6.
A lead off home run by Kyle Kinman for Butler in the eighth inning made it 8-7. Allen County responded by scoring a run in the ninth.
Marcus Peavler, who was 3-for-4 in the game, drew a walk to open the inning then stole second with one out. With two gone, Curtiss Bunch doubled in the run.
Allen County had five doubles among its 10 hits in the game. Bunch had two of those doubles. Nick Fountain, Brad Alberts and Wyatt Hall each had one double.
Bryce Williams hit two singles and Peavler had three base hits.
With Aaron Burke on the mound in relief, the Red Devils gave up one more run in the ninth but Burke got his fifth strikeout in two innings of work to end the game. Burke allowed one run on two hits and picked up a save.
Ben Pearson, who pitched 22⁄3 innings late in relief, got the win. He allowed two runs on one hit and had one strikeout.
Cody Wren started for ACCC and went three innings, allowing one run on three hits and one walk with two strikeouts. Kyle Grana worked 11⁄3 innings and was charged with four runs on five hits and three walks with two strikeouts.
Red Devils win, get ready for playoffs
