Baseball Game Preview: Hays Indians vs. Great Bend Panthers

The Hays Indians will square off against the Great Bend Panthers at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Each of these teams will be battling to keep a five-game winning streak alive.

Nine must be Hays' lucky number: they beat Garden City with that score not once but twice on Friday. The Indians came out on top against the Buffaloes by a score of 9-5.

Meanwhile, Great Bend made easy work of Liberal on Friday and carried off a 12-1 win. The result was nothing new for the Panthers, who have now won seven contests by six runs or more so far this season.

Great Bend got a great performance from Hunter Herrman as he struck out six batters over 5.2 innings while giving up just one earned run off five hits. That's the most strikeouts Herrman has posted since back in April of 2024.

At the plate, Daxton Minton was a standout: he scored two runs while going 2-for-4. Slade Mohr also deserves some recognition as he hit his first double of the season.

Great Bend was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .394. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as Liberal only posted a batting average of .261.

Great Bend pushed their record up to 8-1 with the victory, which was their fifth straight on the road. The road wins came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 2.4 runs on average over those games. As for Hays, their record is now 5-1.

Hays came out on top in a nail-biter against Great Bend when the teams last played two weeks ago, sneaking past 5-4. The rematch might be a little tougher for the Indians since the team won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.