The Fernley High School baseball team closes the regular season this week with a three-game series in Elko, with a wide range of playoff possibilities still in play.
At 15-6 in league play and in third place entering this week, the Vaqueros could finish as high as second if they sweep Elko and Dayton sweeps Spring Creek, or as low as fifth if they go winless this weekend.
Elko leads the league with a 20-1 record, while Spring Creek is 17-4. Behind the Vaqueros, Wooster and Dayton are both 14-7. Wooster will be at home this week for three games against Fallon, which is in sixth place at 10-11.
The top eight teams qualify for the regional tournament, which opens May 1-2 with the top four seeds hosting a best-of-3 series. The winners of those four series will advance to the double-elimination tournament the following weekend.
Spring Creek took two of three games in Fernley last week, giving them a tiebreaking advantage if the two teams finish with the same record.
Spring Creek won Friday’s game 9-2, then Saturday the teams split a pair of one-run decisions, with Fernley winning the first game 4-3 and Spring Creek returning the favor in the second, 5-4.
“Friday was a bad day of baseball for us, and Saturday was a day of great baseball from both teams,” Fernley coach Thomas Chapin said.
Spring Creek broke Friday’s game open with all nine runs in the third and fourth innings, while the Vaqueros couldn’t capitalize with runners on base.
“We really got beat with two strikes,” Chapin said. “Whether it was pitching with two strikes or hitting with two strikes, we didn’t execute and win those battles. Hitters going down on bad pitches and pitchers giving too good of pitches to hit.”
Vaquero batters made hard contact through the game, starting with a home run by Vance Swindlehurst in the first inning and three doubles among their other nine hits. They also had several hard-hit balls that Spring Creek turned into outs.
Nikko Pryor had four of Fernley’s 10 hits, including two doubles, but Fernley was unable to string multiple hits together.
In Saturday’s first game, Sidnny Clark singled to score Nikko Pryor with the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning. Spencer Pryor delivered the tying run with a single that scored Swindlehurst.
“When we came around with the middle of our order up in the bottom of the seventh, I had a lot of confidence we could win it,” Chapin said. “And Spencer delivers a huge game-tying hit and is followed up by Sidnny with his second walk-off of the season. Just great stuff.”
But in the second game Saturday, it was Spring Creek’s McCoy McArtor who singled in the winning run in the top of the seventh.
Fernley led 4-1 after scoring three runs in the second inning, but the Spartans chipped away with a run in the third, two in the fifth to tie it 4-4 and then won it in the seventh.
“We were able to exploit their defense early with small-ball bunts, but our offense just stalled after that,” Chapin said.
Five of Fernley’s seven hits in the game came in the first two innings.
With two of the three games coming down to the final pitch, the Vaqueros got a preview of what the playoffs might look like, especially if they can advance past the first round.
“We played a good team, but we’re only going to keep playing good teams,” Chapin said. “We’ll focus on fixing our approaches and clean up some other things and prepare for a big series with Elko.”
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