Johnson County Baseball Finishes KJCCC East Division Play Unbeaten, Earns Top Seed In Plains District Tournament
COLBY, Kan. – For the first time since 1998 and just the second time in conference history, the Johnson County Community College baseball team was able to join an elusive club by going through a regular season conference schedule unbeaten as the Cavaliers won the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference East Division title to earn the top overall seed in the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball Plains District Tournament.
Completing their perfect conference season with a four-game sweep of Fort Scott Community College during the final week of the regular season, the Cavaliers will enter postseason play with a record of 54-2 overall after going 32-0 in the KJCCC East Division and ending the regular season with 38 consecutive victories. JCCC, which has won each of the last three NJCAA Division 1 Baseball Plains District Tournament titles, has spent the past seven weeks as the number one team in the NJCAA Division 1 Baseball poll and saw both of its regular-season losses come to teams ranked in the NJCAA Division 1 top 25 poll. Before this season, the only other KJCCC team to go through a regular season conference schedule unbeaten was the 1998 Cowley College baseball team, which went 34-0 in KJCCC East Division play and went on to win a second-straight NJCAA Division 1 Baseball National Title.
Across their 32-game conference slate, Johnson County outscored opponents 432-108, while averaging a team batting average of .414 in conference play with 215 extra-base hits and 113 home runs. In addition to their offensive prowess, the Cavaliers boast a team ERA of 3.75 in conference play and recorded 308 total strikeouts against KJCCC East Division foes across 223 total innings pitched. Defensively, JCCC recorded a .976 fielding percentage and committed just 20 errors in 850 total chances. Nationally, Johnson County ranks in the top five of NJCAA Division 1 baseball in runs, hits, triples, home runs, RBI, extra-base hits, total bases, batting average, slugging percentage, earned run average, and batting average against.
Following Johnson County in the final KJCCC East Division regular season standings was Kansas City Kansas, as the Blue Devils earned a four-game split with Cowley College on the final week of the regular season to finish the conference schedule with a 24-8 record and two games ahead of the third-place Tigers. Following Cowley is fourth-place Fort Scott, who finished with a 19-13 conference record to earn the final of the four first-round host opportunities from the KJCCC East Division in the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball Plains District Tournament.
The opening round of the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball Plains District Tournament will feature a best two-out-of-three series between the top four teams in the final KJCCC East and West Division regular season standings, hosting teams from the opposite division who finished fifth through eighth in the standings. For KJCCC East Division host schools, Johnson County will host Garden City in Overland Park, Kansas City Kansas will host Colby Community College, Cowley College will host Dodge City Community College, and Fort Scott will host Barton Community College. Winners of the eight opening round series will advance to a double-elimination tournament at Eck Stadium on the campus of Wichita State University, with the winner earning a bid to the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Full details regarding the 2026 NJCAA Division 1 Baseball Plains District Tournament can be found at the following link: https://kjccc.org/sports/bsb/2025-26/files/2026_BSB_Regional. Included are game times for all games of the tournament, a tournament schedule, tournament bracket, live video links, and other information to provide fans with a centralized web page to find all information regarding the Plains District Tournament.
