The Lowry High School baseball team picked up a forfeit win against Sparks on Friday night, and they backed it up with a couple of blowouts on Saturday to move to 9-10 in league play and a tie for the sixth seed in the Northern 3A playoff race with North Valleys.
“Sparks is in a tough spot because they only have 12 kids on their roster and seven or eight of them are freshmen,” said LHS baseball coach Andy Harmon. “Most of those kids have never played baseball in their life.”
Ridge Ricketts tripled in his first three at bats in the opener Saturday on his way to a 5-for-5 performance, while Jordan Parker (2-2), Josiah Chapman (2-2), and Christopher Schultz (1-1) also had perfect days at the plate. Schultz’s hit was a two-RBI inside the park home run in the fifth to help put away the game for the Buckaroos.
The Buckaroos had 20 hits in the contest. Parker also earned the win for Lowry, throwing two scoreless innings by allowing no hits and striking out four.
Tyler Neu covered the last three innings, striking out six and he only gave up one hit and one run.
“We threw Jordan on kind of a “re-hab” start," Harmon said. "He struggled a little bit, as you would expect coming back from his injury, but we wanted to get him a little time on the bump to knock the rust off and get him ready for what is to come.”
The second game of the double header was a one-hit shutout of the Railroaders 14-0.
Chapman took the win for the Buckaroos with one hit allowed in three innings, and he struck out two. Michael Yarnell allowed no hits and had six strikeouts in relief.
“In the second game it was nice because some of our reserves who don’t get a lot of playing time got to go in and get a chance to play,” Harmon said. “They did what we would expect them to do off of a freshman pitcher; they hit the ball all over the yard.”
Lowry racked up 16 hits in the game. Klay Garner smacked a home run in the fourth inning, and he also had two of the Buck’s eight stolen bases.
“Klay lifted one out to right field, got the wind behind him and hit one out, so that was nice," Harmon said.
The Buckaroos committed no errors in the nightcap, eliminating one of their season long issues.
On Tuesday, April 23 the Buckaroos traveled to Reno and North Valleys for a make-up double header that will likely determine who will go to the playoffs this year.
Results of the contest were not available at press time.
“Tuesday is a big series now; if we take two we should be set for the playoffs,” Harmon concluded. “I think we are pretty evenly matched with North Valleys. They are playing some good baseball right now, and we have kind of hit our stride and are playing real good ball also, so we need to make the plays defensively and keep hitting the ball. I expect Brendan (Domire) and Ridge to do what they do on the mound and we should be able to come out of there with two wins, we saved them for these games on Tuesday.”
Elko comes to Winnemucca on Friday for a 2 p.m. game and the series continues on Saturday, April with a 10 a.m. double header.
The Bucks will finish up the regular season at Truckee on May 3-4.
Currently Truckee (19-2) is atop the Northern 3A standings, with Spring Creek (15-6), Churchill County (Fallon) (15-6), and South Tahoe (15-6) locked in a three-way tie for second. Elko (14-7) is right on their heels, and North Valleys (9-10) will battle Lowry (9-10) for the sixth seed.
Fernley (6-15), Dayton (1-20), and Sparks (0-21) round out the league.
The top two teams out of the top six get a first round bye in the Regional Tournament that will be held in Elko on May 9-11.
The State Championships will be held at Virgin Valley High School in Mesquite this year on May 16-18.
