One anxious moment after another confronted the Fernley Vaqueros in the third game of their series last Saturday against Fallon. One swing of the bat by Sidnny Clarke gave the Vaqueros some relief.
Clark singled home Brodie Jones with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning as the Vaqueros pulled out a 10-9 win to take two of the three games in the series.
The Vaqueros are now 5-4 in the Northern 3A after getting swept in their opening league series at Dayton. The Vaqueros have responded from that sweep by winning five of six against the two teams that played in the regional championship game last season.
“I think that’s a big props to our guys for kind of the way they reapproach practice and they show up with a purpose every day,” coach Thomas Chapin said. “When we play our clean brand of baseball, we’re the best team I think in the league, but if we don’t play that kind of baseball anybody can beat you.”
After a 10-1 Fernley win in the first game of the series Friday and an 11-1 Fallon win in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, the Vaqueros jumped to an 8-2 lead after two innings in the finale. Riley McCullar and Brodie Jones had run-scoring singles in a four-run first inning, In the second inning, Nikko Pryor drove in two runs with a triple, then scored on a double by Spencer Pryor. Matthew Bigrigg then singled to score Spencer Pryor for the 8-2 lead.
Fallon scored three runs in the third inning, then with Fernley up 9-5, the Greenwave scored four times in the top of the seventh to force extra innings.
Both teams had their chances to win in extra innings. The Vaqueros loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the eighth, but Fallon turned a line drive by Spencer Pryor into a double play to help escape the jam.
The Greenwave loaded the bases with two outs in the top of the 10th, but Riley McCullar struck out the final batter.
The Vaqueros put one runner on base on a hit batter in the bottom of the 10th, and Fallon had a batter reach the same way in the top of the 11th, but both teams came up empty.
In the 11th, singles by Jones and Bigrigg set up a sacrifice bunt by Jayse Jones to move the runners to second and third, then Clarke delivered his game-winning hit.
“In all honesty my stomach was on the floor for about all four of those innings,” Chapin said. “It’s always fun to play extra-inning baseball but it turns the nerves up a little bit.”
Friday, the Vaqueros took advantage of five Fallon errors and a strong pitching performance by Nikko Pryor to claim the win. McCullar had three hits, including a triple, scored two runs and drove in two. Alex Juliot and Vance Swindlehurst both scored three runs.
Fallon put up 11 runs on 14 hits in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, while Zack Adams held Fernley to three hits.
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