Reeling Bluejays endure tough week
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
It began looking like 2004 could be the breakout year the Bluejays and coach John Sparks have been starved for in an evenly matched KCAC.
It's no cake walk going into Wichita and splitting eight with the Kansas Newman Jets and Friends. Neither is beating anybody from baseball-hotbed Texas and a team that shocked perennial NAIA stalwart Oklahoma City.
Not long ago, playing perhaps their best baseball of the season, the Bluejays were three games in back of league-leading Friends for the top spot in the division.
The train has derailed and Tabor's (5-13 KCAC, 16-22) last win came April 3 in a split with Kansas Wesleyan
A winless week with the Bluejays falling to Ottawa, Sterling, and Bethany has knocked Tabor down to last place with an 11-game skid.
Closing out the regular season with two of their last three games on the road, it's going to be a fight for the Bluejays to stay out of the KCAC basement. Tabor's biggest problem has been what Sparks has grumbled about all year: scoring runs.
While some teams have put up as many as 18 runs on the Bluejays, Tabor's biggest offensive outburst has been a modest nine runs.
Through the games against the Braves, Warriors, and Swedes, the Bluejays have pounded out a combined 47 hits.
Those 47 hits have turned into a meager 22 runs total.
Ottawa gave up eight hits in game one Wednesday in Hillsboro and still won 11-1.
The Bluejays had 11 in the nightcap and still came up on the short end of 17-7 game.
Two days later in the makeup game at Sterling, it was the Bluejays picking up nine hits early in the game. They still lost, 11-6.
Tabor actually outdid the Warriors in the finale, 9-8, only to lose 9-6.
The Bluejays hit rock bottom April 6 in Hillsboro against the Swedes and the results were nearly the same Saturday in Lindsborg.
Tabor got seven hits and tumbled the first game, 9-1. The nightcap had the Bluejays scrounging up three hits in a 5-1 loss.
Zavien Rivers took to the mound in game one against the Braves.
With Tabor down 2-0 to start the second inning, a three-run second and a two-run third left the Bluejays in a 7-0 hole by the time heavy-hitter Chance Miles broke up the shutout with an RBI double.
Miles was 2-for-4, Mike Fouquet went 2-for-3, and Tony Steiner was 2-for-2 with a double.
After trailing in the nightcap, 3-2 to close out the first, Fouquet gave Tabor its only lead against Ottawa, 5-3, going deep for a three-run blast.
Holding the Braves scoreless in the second, starter Andy Womack had the dam burst in the third inning with Ottawa rallying for a combined nine runs the next three innings.
The third, fourth, and fifth innings were too much for Tabor.
The Bluejays had a 2-0 lead Thursday at Sterling heading into the bottom of the second.
That was when the floor gave way on Scott Wolf, getting knocked around for five runs that kept Tabor down for the count.
Grant Brubacher was 1-for-3, scoring a team-high two RBIs on a double and Fouquet and Brian Kimsey also went 1-for-3 for an RBI a piece.
J.R. Mendoza was 2-for-2 with a run scored.
The Warriors buried the Bluejays for good, 7-2, roughing up Gerald Goodale for a four-run bottom half of the second.
Tabor battled back to trim the lead to 7-6, closing out the top half of the fourth.
Sterling scored one in the fourth and fifth for the 9-6 final.
With the Bluejays in a 1-0 jam Saturday at Lindsborg heading into the Bethany half of the third, the game again came unraveled on Womack.
Tabor was able to thwart a shutout, scoring a run in the top of the fourth.
Tyson Bauerle had a shutout going until the third inning of the finale when the Swedes put two up.
Mustering just a trio of hits, Miles chopped Bethany's lead in two with an RBI double.
Of Tabor's three hits, two came from Miles.
Bethany's lead inflated to 4-1 with another two-run fourth, again being enough to pin the Bluejays.
The road gets no easier for Tabor this Saturday when it makes a long trip to Leavenworth to face St. Mary.
The Spires are the lone league team the Bluejays have swept, March 31 in Hillsboro.
