RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
POSTED: May 19, 2012
In a game that ended just short of midnight, the clock finally struck a final chime for the Reno High baseball team’s dramatic stay at the 4A state tournament.
The Huskies, playing in their third one-run game in two days, staged a dramatic comeback before coming up short against Coronado, 9-8, in an elimination game Friday night at Peccole Park.
Coronado advances to face Bishop Gorman for the state championship Saturday at 3 p.m. The Cougars, who lost to Reno on Thursday, will need to beat the Gaels twice to claim the state title. Despite both teams being from Las Vegas, they have not faced each other this season.
Coronado sprinted to a 7-1 lead through three and a half innings in Friday’s elimination game, with Cody Howard’s three-run homer in the second inning providing the biggest impact.
Reno put together an improbable fifth-inning rally, though, scoring five runs after the Huskies’ first two batters were easily put out. Ninth-place hitter Tyler McElroy had the key hit in the rally, a two-run triple.
The Huskies later took their first lead of the game with two runs on just a single hit in the fifth. That 8-7 advantage was quickly erased, however, when Coronado scored two runs of its own in the sixth. Chandler Blanchard’s home run tied the score at 8 and swung the momentum back toward the Cougars.
Coronado won despite committing four errors. In the Cougars’ loss to Reno on Thursday, they had five errors.