The Lowry dugout looks on during Thursday’s doubleheader against Dayton.
To say it was a wild ride for the Lowry High School baseball team this spring would be an understatement.
The Buckaroos were down to 11 players for the final three weeks of the season and picked up their first league win of the season in the finale homes games of the year.
Lowry beat Dayton 8-5 in Thursday’s first game of a doubleheader, while the Dust Devils won the nightcap 10-5.
Friday’s home finale was postponed after rain and unplayable field conditions. The game was made up Wednesday in Dayton..
Lowry’s Angus Boyles puts the ball in play.
Lowry 8, Dayton 5
Prior to the start of the doubleheader, Joseph Esquibel threw out the first pitch prior to the game. Esquibel is 16 years old son and the middle child of seven.
He has been fighting for his life for over 18 months, receiving his official diagnosis of high risk (stage 4) neuroblastoma in October of 2022.
His journey to find out why he was sick started in August/Sept 2022.
After his diagnoses we have been traveling every 2 weeks to Salt Lake City for treatments for a week at a time.
He has had many chemotherapies, scans, stem cell retrievals, bone marrow aspirations, biopsies, blood transfusions, platelet transfusions, stem cell transfusions, six cycles of immunotherapy, T-cell retrieval and surgery to remove his primary tumor.
He takes numerous medications and has to have shots to boost his immune system before treatments. His scans early on have shown he was not responded to any of the previous treatments.
After trailing 2-0 after four innings of play, his Buckaroo teammates provided him with a victory. Lowry took a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the fifth inning and didn’t trail again.
With one out, Erick Valencia and Aiden Tregellas walked to start the rally. Valencia eventually scored after a stolen base and passed ball.
A sac fly by Zaq Growcock tied the game at 2-2 and Txema Bengochea scored the go-ahead run on a passed ball.
The Buckaroos broke the game open with five runs in the sixth inning, when Brayden Dennis tripled home Jake Bauman.
Bryce Niblack followed with a single and Angus Boyles a double to make the score 6-2.
A triple by Valencia and him later scoring on a passed ball increased the margin to 8-2.
Lowry was not out of the woods just yet and needed three pitchers to get through a stressful seventh inning. Gabe Lange closed out the game with a strikeout.
Dennis had a team-high two hits and Connor Peterson, Bengochea, Niblack, Boyles and Valencia each had a hit. ReiCyan Grau earned the win on the mound.
Dayton 10, Lowry 5
Lowry could not hold on to the momentum from game one, as Dayton led 3-0 going into the bottom of the fourth inning.
With one out in the fourth inning, Lange doubled, followed by a triple from Valencia and a single from Grau gave the Buckaroos a 4-3 advantage.
The lead did not last long, as the Dust Devils scored three times in the fourth inning and four more in the sixth to secure a series split.
Gray collected three of Lowry’s nine hits, as Valencia, Lange, Boyles, Niblack, Peterson and Bengochea each had one hit.