WICHITA, Kan. – The Rogers State baseball team's postseason chances ended on Saturday with two losses at Newman by the scores of 4-3 and 8-5 at McCarthy Field.
 
The Hillcats (23-23, 9-15 Heartland) can match Lubbock Christian and Newman for the fourth and final spot for the Heartland Conference Tournament with four games left in the regular season, but RSU would be left out due to the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Chaps and Jets.
 
NU 4, RSU 3
 
The host Jets built a 4-1 advantage in the first game and held on for a 4-3 victory.
 
After Garrett Hall tied the score at 1-1 in the second inning on a sacrifice fly, Newman put up three runs in the bottom half of the inning to gain the 4-1 lead. A two-run homer started the scoring in the inning for NU and one more run scored on a single to left.
 
RSU tried to rally late, but came up one run short. Brendan Griffith drove in one run in the fifth inning with a single to left field to plate Zack Mann. In the sixth inning, Sam Casinelli put down a bunt that scored Brooks Douglass to pull the navy and red to within one at 4-3.
 
The Cats held a 9-7 advantage in hits in game one. Grant Farris went 2-for-3 and seven other Hillcats posted hits.
 
Senior Spencer Bivens pitched 6.0 innings and allowed only three earned runs on seven hits with one strikeout. He dropped to 6-5 on the season.
 
NU 8, RSU 5
 
The Hillcats were up early in game two, but the Jets used two big innings to rally for the 8-5 victory and the doubleheader sweep.
 
RSU gained a 2-0 lead in the first two innings due to an RBI double down the line by Blake Chiaramonte and a Bradley Degnan single to right.
 
Trailing 2-0, Newman posted eight runs combined between the fifth and sixth innings. The Jets started with three runs in the fifth inning on two RBI-producing singles.
 
Mann tied the score for RSU in the top of the sixth inning when he singled up the middle to score Casinelli, but the Jets put up five runs in the bottom half of the inning to open up an 8-3 margin. Newman once again used timely singles to bring in the first two runs. The lead grew to 6-3 due to an RSU error. After the error, another single drove in two runs for the 8-3 score.
 
RSU scored two late runs for the 8-5 final score. A wild pitch in the seventh brought in one run. In the eighth inning, the Cats worked three straight walks to load the bases with no outs, but the navy and red could only plate one run when Chris Nakashima was hit by a pitch. Two fly outs and a strikeout ended the opportunity for RSU.
 
The Hillcats posted 12 hits with the top four in the lineup totaling nine. Degnan totaled a 3-for-5 performance with one RBI in the nightcap. Mann, Chiaramonte and Griffith all tallied two hits.
 
Landon Nealon started game two, going 4.2 innings with two strikeouts and three runs scored on seven hits. Sean Robinson, Joey Lucas and Knock Knoten pitched in relief.
 
The Hillcats end the regular season with a four-game series at Oklahoma Christian on Friday and Saturday in Oklahoma City, Okla. The weekend starts with a doubleheader on Friday at 2 p.m. with live stats and video streaming available.