Cowley battles hard but can’t hand No.-1 ranked Johnson its first conference loss

Cowley had won 19 of its past 20 conference games before running into the buzzsaw of the Cavaliers. Johnson County has won 34 games in a row to improve its record to 50-2 and 28-0 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division. The Tigers (31-19) are now in third place in the conference with a 20-8 record.

Johnson County captured its fourth straight conference title, while Kansas City (22-6) moves into second place.

"We have got to play better," Cowley head coach Darren Burroughs said. "Johnson County has a good club, and we learned a lot about them. We had a chance but didn't get the big hits when we needed them."

Cowley, which is the only program ever to go undefeated in the conference, was on the verge of keeping that record to themselves as they were four outs away from a win in game three of the series.

However, after a two-out error kept the sixth inning alive for the Cavaliers, Colin Coonradt hit a two-run triple off Grady Hoke to give Johnson County a 2-1 lead. The hit by Coonradt was one of only three allowed by Hoke (5-4), who did not allow an earned run in six innings pitched.

"Grady gave us a great outing, and we really pitched pretty well all day," Burroughs said. "You just can't make mistakes against good teams and expect to win."

Johnson County's Ashton Nance pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning to preserve the 2-1 victory and improve his record to 11-0.

Drake Fittro's solo home run in the top of the third inning accounted for the Tigers' lone run. The home run was Fittro's 16^th of the season.

In the final game of the series, Johnson County scored six runs in the first four innings and chased Tiger starting pitcher Chance Acord (4-4) from the game with the Cavaliers leading 6-0.

Cowley did not manage a hit off of Johnson County starter Victor Christal (9-0), who was removed from the game after five innings.

Instead of tucking tail, the Tigers rallied with five runs in the top of the sixth inning and pulled within 6-5 on a two-run homer by Logan Smith. The home run was the team-leading 17^th of the season for Smith.

The Cavaliers added a pair of insurance runs in the eighth inning to push the lead back to three, 8-5.

Cowley would load the bases in the top of the ninth inning before the Cavaliers' Braylon Brooks recorded the final two outs to earn the save.

The Tigers will attempt to bounce back when they open a four-game series against Kansas City by playing a doubleheader at KCK on Thursday at 1 p.m.

"KCK has a good team," Burroughs said. "It will be a big series and likely determine who will be the two-seed at the region tournament," Burroughs said.

Score by inning:

Game one                    R H E

Cowley  0 0 1 0 0 0 0 – 1 5 1

Johnson 0 0 0 0 0 2 x – 2 3 0

Game two                          R H E

Cowley  0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 – 5 6 2

Johnson 0 1 2 3 0 0 0 2 x – 8 7 0