Fernley came to town for a 3A North Division series against the Lowry High School baseball team and left town with one win and a couple of losses.
Lowry lost a 3-2 heartbreaker on Friday, but came back strong on Saturday with two wins to go to 3-7 in league play and keep its playoff hopes alive.
“We played well enough to win, but some mental mistakes on the bases cost us," said LHS coach Andy Harmon of the loss on Friday. "In a close game you can’t afford to make mistakes, and we made two base-running mistakes that really hurt.”
Lowry took the lead early on Friday when they scored in the first inning.
The Vaqueros answered in the top of the second with a run of their own, but the Bucks replied with a score to keep a 2-1 lead. Fernley tied it up in the third, and they scored one in the fifth to take a 3-2 lead, and that was how it ended.
“Ridge (Ricketts) did a good job on the mound again,” Harmon said. “They fought until the end; this team keeps fighting. We had the tying run on, and bunted him to second with the top of our lineup coming up. Ridge smoked one, but they were playing him in the gap and he hit it right at the kid. We are making mental mistakes and the baseball gods aren’t helping us out because we are shooting ourselves in the foot. You couldn’t script that last inning any better. We had a guy at second with one out and the top of the lineup coming up. We were right where we wanted to be, but we just didn’t get it done.”
Lowry wins on
walk-off single
Saturday was a new day and the Bucks came ready to play.
Lowry scored one run in the second inning in Saturday's first game and held that lead until the sixth when Fernley scored four runs.
The Buckaroos tied it up in the bottom of the seventh with three runs to send the game into extra innings.
Kyle Sappington started the eighth-inning rally and was knocked in from second base on a RBI-single by Brooks Bergenheier, who singled to right field for the winning run.,
"We had two outs and Kyle came up. He reached base on an error and went to second on a throwing error. He got a great lead at second and Brooks slapped an outside pitch into right field where the outfielder was pulled in to have a chance to throw out the runner at home. Sapp got a great jump and was able to score on a single to right to win it. It was awesome.”
That victory gave the Buckaroos their second league victory after a number of close losses.
“We have been fighting until the end all year." Harmon said. "We have lost three one-run games this year, and we always have runners on base at the end of the games when we have taken a loss. This time we were able to tie it up and win in extras. It is nice to break through for a change.”
Lowry takes series finale
The second game of the double-header on Saturday was a 14-9 Lowry victory.
The Buckaroos jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning, only to see the Vaqueros bounce back with four runs in the third inning to go in front 4-2.
Lowry bounced back with four runs in the bottom of the third inning to go back in front 6-4.
However, Fernley once again went in front with two runs in the fourth inning.
Lowry took the lead for good with a single run in the bottom of the fourth inning and added five runs in the sixth inning.
"We got rolling in the second game," Harmon said.."We pounded out 14 hits, but we didn’t play as clean on defense. We made five errors and three of those were on our outfielders just trying to make plays. We hit the ball well, Ridge was 3-4 with two doubles, and Josh (Leveille) was 2-3 with a two-run home run.
LHS senior Jake Marriott suffered a potential season-ending injury during the first game on Saturday, but the team picked him up.
“He was scheduled to start pitching the second game,” Harmon said. “He was the biggest cheerleader on the bench for those guys. He did what you would expect a good leader to do.”
Lowry played a double-header at North Valleys on Tuesday in a make-up series from a March 23 bout that was cancelled due to weather.
Results of the contest were not available at press time.
“North Valleys is going to be a tough one,” Harmon said. “We are going to be without Jake and Brendan (Domire), two of our three starting pitchers. We are going to have to find some guys to step up and hopefully we can get it done.”
The Buckaroos travel to Dayton on April 5-6.
