By DAVE BELCHER
Moapa Valley Progress
The Moapa Valley High School Baseball team played in the state championship tournament last week at Virgin Valley High School. The tournament began on Thursday. By the end of the day Friday, the Pirates had been eliminated from the tournament with two close losses, both to northern teams.
The first of those losses came on a blustery Thursday afternoon in a game against the Tahoe Truckee Wolverines. The final score in the game was 0-2, Truckee.
Truckee started the game as the homer team, the top seed from the north. Truckee pitcher Spencer Edmonson started the game by striking out the first three Pirate batters.
Chase Hadley started for the Pirates and allowed a hit and a walk before the final two outs were scored.
Truckee scored both of their runs in the second inning with three singles. Elliott Rost hit the third single scoring Sawyer Thompson from second base. A Hunter Wrzesinski error gave the Wolverines their second run. That is all Truckee would need to win the game.
Gavin Hadley doubled in the second inning to right center with two outs then was left there.
Chase Hadley singled to start the third and advanced to second on a Rylan Evans single to center field with two outs. Coby Longman then lined out to end the inning.
Gannon Hymas started the fifth with a double. But that was followed by two strike outs and a fly out to third base to end the inning.
The Pirates went down in order in the sixth inning.
Gavin Hadley started the seventh with a single to center field. Hymas reached first on an error by Truckee’s short stop placing two on base with no outs. The Pirates loaded the bases with just one out when Peyton McDermott walked. But Evans flew out to end the game.
The Pirates finished with just five hits striking out ten times. Truckee finished with eight hits. Elliott Rost had the RBI. Sawyer Thompson had two hits for the Wolverines.
That loss placed the Pirates in the losers bracket where they would face Fallon in the elimination game. Fallon had lost to Boulder City in their first round game.
The Pirates gave everything they had in the second roundbut still fell short to the Green Wave in extra innings, 12-11.
Fallon started the third inning with two singles then advance to third on a wild pitch. McCormick hit a sacrifice fly to right field scoring the first run. Alvarado then doubled scoring another run. Alvarado would score on Irvins single giving the Green Wave a 3-0 lead.
Moapa Valley came right back to tie the game at 3-3. Wrzesinski was hit by a pitch to start the inning. He advanced to second on an error by the Fallon shortstop where Evans made first base. Longman drove home Wrzesinski with a single. Hadley drove in Evans followed by Hymas driving in Longman with a single, tying the game.
Fallon’s Richardson started the fourth with a walk. He ended up scoring on a McCormick ground ball after he had stolen second base and advanced to third on a pass ball.
Fallon scored three more in the fifth after a double by Lee, who scored on a single by Galusa. Cota scored an RBI then Galusa scored on single by Cole.
Longman started the Pirate fifth inning by reaching first on a dropped third strike. Luke Bennett singled followed by Frei singling loading the bases. Hadley then grounded into a double play scoring Longman. Bennett scored on a Fallon error to cut the lead to two runs 7-5.
Fallon came up with four runs in the top of the sixth highlighted by Alvarado’s two run homer. But Moapa Valley scored two more runs in the bottom half after McDemott walked and scored on Evans’ triple. Evans scored when Longman groundout to the shortstop. So Moapa Valley trailed by four runs heading into their half of the seventh.
Then came the rally. Frei singled to start it off. Gavin Hadley double and Frei scored on a sacrifice fly by Hymas. Hadley reached third on a error then scored on a single by Wrzesinski. Hadley and Wrzesinski scored on a double by Evans tieing the game and sending it into extra innings.
Fallon won the game after Richardson walked and scored with two outs.
Evansf had 3 RBIs in the game on two hits. Longman and Hymas had two RBIs eachs.
The Pirates finished down the stretch with a 1-4 record but finishing with a 19-13 season record. They won the regular season and returned to the state tournament.
Truckee ended up winning the state title by beating Fallon 1-0. Truckee needed only six runs to take the entire state tournament. They beat Boulder City Friday night 3-1. Boulder City beat Fallon in the first game of the tournament 5-4.
The North this year were in every championship game this year.
