It was a tale of two games for the Salina Falcons who had no problem getting hits and scoring runs in their opening game of the Kansas Grand Slam Tournament, but the second game the Falcons were not able to pick up the hits and dropped it.

The Falcons came into the game against the Great Bend Chiefs winning four of their last six and scoring 10 plus runs in four of those games.  That carried on into their opening game of Pool Play as the Falcons cranked out 16 hits and scored 10 runs to clip the Chiefs 10-4.

Salina picked apart all three pitchers that Great Bend threw at them, but instead of exploding for one winning to get to their average of 10 runs a game, the Falcons used a constant supply of runs in every inning to get the win.  Salinas big inning was the fifth inning as three doubles accounted for three runs pushing their lead to 6-2, but the Chiefs answered back up two runs of their own still making it interesting.

The Falcons put the icing on the cake in the sixth and then again in the seventh  with two runs in each inning.  Daniel O’Brien picked up the opening victory going the full length giving up eight hits, striking out three and walking three batters.

Salina had the final game of day one and it was played at James Matson at 10:30 p.m. with lighting complications at Dean Evans.  While the youngsters at the game were nodding off on their parents laps, the Falcons bats were asleep as well.  Their 16 hit performance did not carry over as Millard North’s pitcher Shayne Kelly shut the Falcons down to just four hits.  Kelly was your typical ground ball pitcher, out of the 28 at-bats that the Falcons had 12 were ground outs.

The Falcons had the early 1-0 lead in the second inning when Nevarez singled in Taylor Bradley who had walked earlier in the inning, but just three more hits the next five innings for the Falcons lead to their 9-1 defeat.

Millard North took advantage of three Falcon errors and finished them off in the seventh with four runs, two scoring on a error and the other on a wild pitch.

Next up for the Falcons (18-5) is the Kansas Titans who lost 4-2 to the Kansas Rattlers in their only game on the day and will play Millard North at 11:15 a.m. at Dean Evans.  The game will not be played until 10:30 p.m. at James Matson Field.