Baseball: Vaqueros face defining two-week push in playoff race

Sitting in third place with six games remaining in the regular season against the two teams ahead of them, the time is now for the Fernley High School Vaqueros to find out how high they can climb.

Coach Thomas Chapin said he likes where his team is trending, even with plenty still to tighten up, after the Vaqueros swept a three-game series from Sparks last week and have won 10 games in a row and 13 of 14 since getting swept in their first league series in Dayton. A tougher stretch now awaits, and Chapin said it will give his team a clearer picture of where it stands heading into the postseason.

The Vaqueros are scheduled to host Spring Creek for a single game at 3 p.m. Friday and a doubleheader at 11 a.m. Saturday. Next week they finish the regular season with three games in Elko.

“Heading into playing Spring Creek, we know they’re going to be tough,” he said. “But if we play our game and play it clean, I think our nine guys can beat anyone’s nine guys. It’ll be good for us to get two tough series before playoffs to get ourselves ready.”

Last week the Vaqueros swept Sparks, winning 15-3 on Friday and 22-0 and 14-3 in a doubleheader on Saturday.

“There’s only so much you get out of playing teams that aren’t very good, so our focus was our controllables,” Chapin said. “We can’t control what pitcher we see, what strikes are called, but we can control our effort, intent, and attention.”

Nikko Pryor and Riley McCullar remained hot at the plate. Pryor had four hits and drove in six runs Friday and finished with eight hits and 11 RBI for the weekend, while McCullar drove in eight runs with eight hits in the three games. Spencer Pryor and Vance Swindlehurst also had big weekends at the plate.

“Overall we played well,” Chapin said. “There are plenty of things we need to do better but I’m happy with the way the boys are playing.”

After going into last weekend intent on leaving no doubt against a struggling opponent, the focus changes now for the Vaqueros.

“My message to the players this week is batten down the hatches,” Chapin said. “We’ve got to clean up and tighten up the little things and give ourselves the best chance to win.”