Monday, August 01, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Reno breaks tie in eighth inning, wins, 4-2
By DAMON SEITERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
There’s a reason Davis Banks hits cleanup for Reno’s American Legion baseball team.
Banks delivered two key extra-base hits Sunday to help the Knights to a 4-2 victory over Palo Verde in the state tournament at UNLV’s Wilson Stadium.
With the score tied at two in the top of the eighth inning, Banks tripled off the left-field fence and scored on a double by John Rice to put Reno (39-21) ahead for good.
Banks had driven in Reno’s first two runs with a first-inning double.
“He had a real good ballgame, Davis Banks,” Reno coach Pete Savage said. “He was a huge part of our offense.”
The Knights had five hits in the first two innings. But Reno managed just two hits in the next five innings before Banks led off the eighth with the triple.
“Their pitcher did a great job making adjustments in the middle innings and late innings,” Savage said of Palo Verde’s Jerry Gamez.
While Banks was leading Reno’s offense, pitcher Garrett Luippold was doing his job. He allowed one earned run and struck out seven in eight innings to improve to 11-1.
“Garrett Luippold, he’s the ace of our staff,” Savage said. “He’s a real competitive kid. He’s pitched well for us all year, and he did it again today.”
Bryan Hill was 3-for-4 and Tyler Heil and Banks each had two hits for the Knights, who will play Durango at 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Jon Evans was 3-for-5 with two doubles and two RBIs for Palo Verde (27-12), which will play Bonanza at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
• Durango 7, Bonanza 6 — Dustin Romero scored on an error with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning to spark the Trailblazers past the Bengals.
Romero and Niko Vasquez led off the inning with back-to-back walks, and Anthony Iaconianni reached on a bunt single to load the bases for cleanup hitter Kris Cichoski.
But Reid Benincasa struck out Cichoski and got Tommy Pham to pop out to first. Brandon Graff then hit a grounder to shortstop that was bobbled by Steven Francom to allow the winning run to score.
Durango coach Tom Appleyard said he was surprised it took an error in the ninth-inning situation.
“We’ve executed in that situation all year,” Appleyard said. “We didn’t execute a lot tonight. That’s compliments to Bonanza. They created a lot of that.”
The Bengals rallied to tie the game twice in the late innings. Durango led 5-3 entering the sixth, but Bonanza got RBI singles from Ben Haberkorn and Ryan Pineda to knot the game at five.
Durango took a 6-5 lead in the seventh when Pham singled up the middle to score Vasquez.
Pineda’s two-out single in the eighth scored Haberkorn to make the score 6-6.
“Any team in this thing can beat you,” Appleyard said. “This is the most evenly matched tournament I’ve seen in 26 years.”