Pryor’s home run powers Vaqueros Northern 3A tournament

Nikko Pryor walked up to home plate for his turn to bat in the bottom of the third inning last Friday afternoon with the Fernley Vaqueros in a precarious situation.

In the first game of the best-of-3 Northern 3A playoff series earlier that afternoon, Dayton jumped on them early with eight runs in the first three innings, and Fernley’s five-run rally in the bottom of the seventh came up a run short in an 8-7 loss.

Facing elimination in the second game of the doubleheader, the Vaqueros trailed 4-1 in that third inning. A 1-out walk by Alex Juliot and a single by Riley McCuller, offered the Vaqueros a glimmer of hope with runners on first and second base and their leading hitter coming up.

Pryor turned that glimmer into a blinding light. His line drive over the left field fence on the first pitch he saw not only tied the game at 4-4, it may have saved the Vaqueros’ season.

“That probably changed the entire series, if I’m being 100% honest, because we just carried that moment with us,” coach Thomas Chapin said.

The jubilation as his teammates mobbed him when he touched home plate looked like more than simple excitement.

“Yeah, for sure,” Pryor said. “It felt like the adrenaline, like the dugout got hyped and everything.”

From there, the Vaqueros added a run in the fourth inning and two more in the fifth to win 7-4 and force a deciding game Saturday.

McCullar, who pitched 4 2/3 innings of scoreless relief in the comeback win, then added three hits including his own home run in the series-clinching 5-0 win Saturday morning.

That win put the Vaqueros not the double-elimination portion of the playoffs, starting at 1 p.m. Thursday against Elko, the tournament’s No. 1 seed. If they win, they would play the winner of the other semifinal between Spring Creek and Wooster at 12:30 p.m. Friday. The losers of the two first round games play an elimination game at 10 a.m. Friday. The championship game is 10 a.m. Saturday, followed immediately by the “if” game if neither team has two losses.

“These guys aren’t ready to be done.” Chapin said. “We have an excellent senior class that has played a lot of baseball together and they want to do something special.”