Vaqueros to play Tuesday at Aces Ballpark

Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

After winning two of three games over Spring Creek last week, the Fernley High School baseball team will start this week with an experience of a lifetime.

The Vaqueros will face Dayton Tuesday at Greater Nevada Field, the home of the Reno Aces and one of the premier minor league stadiums in the country.

The game doubles as a fundraiser for the Fernley High School baseball program. In exchange for playing the game, the team is selling tickets to Aces games. The tickets can be used at any game during the season except Fridays or Saturdays. Tickets are $15, and for each ticket they sell, the team will keep $5, Coach Stan Pryor said the Vaqueros were required to buy 210 tickets for $10 each, and he said they have sold enough to cover the $2,100 and the money from any additional tickets sold will go to the FHS program.

Because the tickets can be used anytime during the Aces season, when ends in September, they will continue to sell tickets after Tuesday’s game. Anyone interested in buying a ticket can email coach Stan Pryor at Stan.pryor@jameshardie.net.

Pryor said the fundraiser will help cover the team’s expenses. He said it costs $1,800 just for enough baseballs to play the season.

“It helps out our program,” he said.

The game against Dayton will not count as a league game, but Pryor said playing in a professional stadium will be something the players remember the rest of their lives.

The Aces begin their season Thursday and play their first home game May 13. The game will serve as a dry run for the Aces gameday staff. There will be full concessions, all of the scoreboards will be active and they will even play walk-up music for each batter.

Last week, the Vaqueros beat Spring Creek 7-4 in Fernley on Wednesday, then split a doubleheader in Spring Creek Saturday, losing the first game 8-7, then winning the finale 7-5.

The Vaqueros scored three times in the bottom of the sixth inning Wednesday to claim the 7-4 win.

Levi Jessop, who had reach based when he was hit by a pitch, scored the go-ahead run on a passed ball, then Tucker Hall added some insurance with a two-run single.

Spring Creek had opened the game with two runs in the top of the first inning, but Fernley tied the game in the second on run scoring singles by Ryan Gamsby and Kyle Jones. The Vaqueros then took a 4-2 lead in the third inning on a sacrifice fly by Justin Reeves and an error, before the Spartans tied the game in the top of the sixth.

In Saturday’s first game, the Vaqueros lost despite leading 7-1 in the sixth inning, as the Spartans scored three times in the sixth and four in the seventh.

Fernley had taken the lead with a run in the first, four in the fourth and two in the top of the sixth.

Reeves and Austin Hobson had two hits each for the Vaqueros, and Jacob Bigrigg drove in two runs.

The Vaqueros bounced back in the second game of the doubleheader , scoring seven times in the first four innings. Fernley scored two in the first inning and three in the third, while the Spartans scored three in the first and two in the third, as the game was tied at 5 going to the fourth. That’s when Tucker Hall hit an RBI-double and Levi Jessop added an RBI-single.

Jessop and Pryor had each doubled in runs in the first, while in the third, the Vaqueros scored three times on a bases loaded walk, a sacrifice fly and an error.

“We should have won three of three, but we had a good lead and the kids relaxed,” Stan Pryor said. “It happens sometimes.