Baseball: Vaqueros enter league tournament as #2 seed
Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
The Fernley High School baseball team saw its seven-game winning streak come to an end in the last game of a three-game series last Saturday, but the surge was good enough to earn them the No. 2 seed with a 9-6 league record for this weekend’s Northern 3A East League Tournament in Winnemucca.
The Vaqueros will start the tournament at 9 a.m. Saturday, against either No. 3 Fallon or No. 6 Spring Creek, who play Friday at 1 p.m. In the other half of the bracket, No. 4 Elko will face No. 5 Lowry at 3:30 p.m. Friday, with the winner to face No. 1 Dayton at 11:30 a.m. Saturday. The championship game follows at 2 p.m.
The Vaqueros followed up a sweep of Lowry the previous week by winning the first two games of a three-game series against Elko, before losing the third game.
In the first game of the series in Fernley last Wednesday, the Vaqueros built an early 8-0 lead and rode it to a 12-2 win. The Vaqueros scored their first two runs on errors in the bottom of the first inning, then made it 3-0 on a groundout by Brandon McCullar that score a run.
Justin Reeves singled in a run in the bottom of the second to stretch the lead to 4-0. In the third inning, Austin Hobson singled in one run, then Jake Cumming singled in another, and an error on the play brought in another run, making it 7-0. Kyle Jones followed with a run-scoring single to make it 8-0
After Elko scored twice in the top of the fourth, the Vaqueros got the runs back in the bottom of the fifth on a two-run single by Ryan Gamsby, then Levi Jessop ended the game by the 10-run rule with a two-run home run.
Jones and Cumming each finished the game 2-for-3 to lead the Vaqueros, while Reeves was the winning pitcher, going all five innings with nine strikeouts and allowing two hits and two walks.
Saturday, the Vaqueros won the first game of a doubleheader in Elko, 14-0. The Vaqueros scored four times in the first inning. First, Jones scored on an error, then three runs scored on a play that started with a single by Jessop.
In the second inning, Cumming scored on an error after stealing second base, and Reeves drove in a run with a single to make it 6-0.
Gamsby added a two-run double and Tucker Hall drove in a run with a single as part of a six-run third inning to stretch the lead to 12-0.
Fernley added two runs in the fifth inning on a passed ball and a wild pitch.
Jessop was 3-for-3 with three RBI, while Cumming and Gamsby each drove in two runs.
Hall was the winning pitcher, allowing just two hits with four strikeouts and no walks.
In the final game, Elko used a four-run fifth inning to pull out a 6-3 win.
The Vaqueros scored first on a sacrifice fly by Reeves in the top of the first inning.
Elko scored two runs on an error in the third inning to take a 2-1 lead, but the Vaqueros went back up 3-2 on an error and a run-scoring double by Gamsby in the top of the fifth before Elko’s winning rally in the bottom of the inning.
Gamsby led the Vaqueros with two hits.
Photos by Michael Michaelsen, for the Fernley Reporter
