DAYTON — The Lowry High School baseball team was looking to improve its postseason chances, with a trip on Monday and Tuesday to one of the surprise teams in the Northern 3A this season.
Dayton came into the three-game series tied for the top spot in the league with Elko.
The Buckaroos had their chances to win two of the games, but saw the Dust Devils win all three contests. Dayton swept a doubleheader on Monday 17-7 and 6-5 (eight innings) and won the finale on Tuesday 8-0.
Lowry dropped to 3-9 in the Northern 3A, while Dayton moved to 10-3.
“If there is a positive to come out of the weekend, we played more complete games against the top team in the league,” said LHS coach Ron Espinola. "The eighth-inning game was the most complete game we played all year. There are positives out of that. We have to keep working and do the simple things. We are hurting ourselves.”
Dayton wins wild opener
The series was scheduled to take place last weekend, but Mother Nature postponed the games to Monday. The opener was a wild one, as the teams traded the lead through the first four innings.
Lowry’s Jayson Smith opened the scoring with a solo home run in the top of the first inning. Dayton fired right back with three runs in the bottom of the first inning.
The Buckaroos tied the game at 3-3 in the top of the second inning after a lead-off single by Tazmin Milton and a double by Michael Rangel. Ridge Ricketts added a RBI-single that scored Rangel to tie the game.
Lowry jumped back in front 5-3 in the fourth inning after back-to-back doubles by Smith and Riley Sakurada. The rally continued with a single by Jake Barnes and a double by Darrin Nelson. However, on the double by Nelson, Barnes was thrown out at the plate. Barnes injured his knee on the play and missed the rest of the series.
The back-and-forth battle continued in the bottom of the fourth inning, as Dayton Dylan Baker hit a grand slam to give Dayton an 8-5 advantage. After giving up a single run in the fifth inning, Lowry closed the gap to 9-7 in the sixth inning, when Dayton scored eight times in the bottom of the sixth to win on the run rule.
“We were coming out and getting leads and it was a two-run game,” Espinola said. “It is a matter of completing the game. We had one horrible inning. Everything just snowballed and that has been the moral of the story for us for the past couple of years.”
Lowry had 15 hits with Smith and Nelson each collecting three. Young, Barnes and Rangel had two each.
Ren Mattson started and suffered the loss for Lowry.
Dust Devils rally for walk-off victory
Lowry looked poised to earn a split of the doubleheader in the early going on Monday.
Young helped himself out on the mound with a RBI-single to drive in Ricketts in the first inning and a solo home run in the second to give Lowry a 2-0 lead. Meanwhile, on the mound, Young allowed just one hit through three innings.
The Buckaroos extended their advantage to 5-0 in the fourth inning, with the aid of a couple errors by the Dust Devils and base hits from Nelson, Ricketts and Brendan Domire.
Dayton finally broke through in the bottom of the fourth inning with five consecutive hits to begin the frame. The Dust Devils tied the game at 5-5, when Young hit two batters with the bases loaded.
“It was one inning with a crooked number that we keep allowing to happen,” Espinola said. “It wasn’t all on us. Dayton’s hitters did their job and you have to give them credit. We needed to capitalize on the opportunit
ies we had earlier in the game.” Lowry left runners on base in each of the next three innings and had a rally going in the eight after Milton led off with a single. However, he was stranded at third base.
The Buckaroos recorded the first two outs in the bottom of the eighth, but Trevor Burrows kept the game alive with a double. After a hit by pitch to the next batter, Baker reached base on an error that allowed Burrows to score the winning run.
Young went the distance on the mound, allowing six runs (five earned) on 11 hits. He struck out four and walked one.
Ricketts and Young each had two hits, while Jake Marriott, Nelson, Domire and Milton each had one hit.
Dayton blanks Lowry
Lowry found it tough sledding in the series finale, as Burrows scattered three hits in 6.2 innings of work. Ricketts and Young picked up two of the three hits in the first inning, but the Buckaroos could not get a run across the plate. Lowry had just one hits and three runners reach base in the final six innings.
“Trevor is nothing new to us and we have seen him for three years,” Espinola said. “He has gotten better from last year, but he is the kind of kid where you need to work the count. We did not do that. We were swinging at his pitches and that is what happens when you face a good pitcher. He kept us off balance.”
Burrows helped himself out in the second inning with a three-run home run to give the Dust Devils a 4-0 lead. Baker added a second home run in the third inning and added single runs in the fifth and sixth inning to account for the final score.
Smith started for Lowry and suffered the loss in two innings of work. He allowed six runs on three hits. Marriott threw the final four innings and allowed two runs (none earned) on five hits. He struck out three and walked one.
“Jake came in and did a great job in relief,” Espinola said. “We just could not get anything going behind him.”
Lowry (3-9) in the Northern 3A is seventh in the league and opened a three-game series with South Tahoe on Friday. The two teams play a doubleheader today (Saturday) at 11 a.m. South Tahoe (7-5) is fifth in the league.
Elko and Dayton are tied for first at 10-3, while Spring Creek (9-4) and Churchill County (6-4) are third and fourth, respectively. Fernley (4-7) is sixth.
The top six teams in the league advance to the Northern 3A Regional Championships May 11-13 in South Tahoe. If weather forces a move, it will be played in Fallon.
