RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
POSTED: May 9, 2012
A little drama never hurt anyone. At least that is the stance the Reno High baseball team is taking these playoffs.
A day after the second-seeded Huskies needed two comebacks to get out of the Northern 4A Regional first round, they again had to come from behind.Garrett Hampson had three hits and R.J. Bush homered and pitched scoreless relief as the Huskies got past visiting Damonte Ranch, 9-7, on Wednesday and are now one win from a state tournament berth.
Reno will face top-seeded McQueen at 4 p.m. today at Bishop Manogue, with the winner advancing to Saturday’s championship game. The regional’s top two teams advance to next week’s state tournament.
“We haven’t even played our best baseball yet. When we do that we’ll just come out and beat teams and won’t make it so interesting all the time,” Bush said.McQueen won all three head-to-head meetings during the regular season.“It’s all about redemption and winning at the right time,” Bush said. “The regular season is over. It’s all about winning right now.”
McQueen eased its way into the winners-bracket final, while Reno had to rally for its two victories.
“Our team showed a lot of heart and character the last couple days,” Huskies coach Pete Savage said.Reno also was the beneficiary of four Damonte errors Wednesday. Four of the Huskies’ final six runs were unearned.“We just made a few too many mistakes on the defensive side of the ball and that was the difference in the game,” Mustangs coach Jon Polson said. “I’m super proud of our offensive effort and I thought we pitched well enough. We just have to clean up defense a little bit. That was the difference in the ballgame. … Against a good team like Reno High, you have to take care of the baseball.”
The sixth-seeded Mustangs, fresh off their flawless first-round upset of third-seeded Manogue, jumped on Reno starter Grant Kukuk and built a 4-0 lead heading to the bottom of the third.Bush capped Reno’s three-run third with a two-run home run to right.
“We fight. We’ve fought all year. Everybody is so competitive on this team is what it boils down to,” Bush said. “It was a total turn in momentum when that happened. You could tell all the energy had kind of been sucked out of them and came over to our side. Once that happened, we knew we were going to win.”
The Huskies took the lead with four unearned runs in the fourth.Damonte tied it at 7 on Kyle Bailey’s three-run homer in the fifth before Reno scored one run each in the fifth and sixth.Bush did not allow a hit in his 2 1/3 innings of relief to earn the win.“It was one of those games where you just had to keep battling,” Savage said. “(Today) is going to be the same. We have to take it one pitch at a time.”Damonte will face Carson in an elimination game at 1 p.m. at Carson.