Hays High Calls It Splits with Great Bend
By NICK McQUEEN
Pushing strongly to the left-field corner at HHS field, 30 to 35 mile-per-hour wind came into play in Tuesday's Western Athletic Conference showdown between the Hays High School baseball team and rival Great Bend.
It wasn't quite the long-ball affair it could have been.
Instead, Great Bend executed small ball in the opener, and Hays High did the same in the nightcap, as the two teams split the doubleheader. The Panthers won 9-5 in Game 1 and Hays High won 9-6 in Game 2.
"On a day like today, if you don't walk people and keep the ball down, you're going to be effective," said HHS coach Frank Leo, as he washed the dirt out of his eyes following the nearly five hour stretch in the third base dugout, which seemed to be a magnet for every dust cloud kicked into the air.
It was Great Bend starter Trent Mauler, a Fort Hays State University signee, that seemed to leave the Indians blinded at the plate.
The senior right-hander had eight strikeouts with just one walk, and pitched a shutout though five innings.
"In Game 1, they competed," Leo said of the rival Panthers. "The guy threw a good ball game, coming at us with the fastball. He just spotted up and threw strikes."
On offense, Great Bend took advantage of its athleticism with senior shortstop Brad Holt leading off the game with a line drive single up the middle, followed by two stolen bases, A sacrifice fly by senior Logan Burns scored the game's first run. Great Bend (9-3 overall, 3-1 WAC) took a 2-0 lead in the second, again leading off the inning with a base hit, and the run scored on Shane Smith's double.
"They responded when they had to -- had clutch hits," Leo said. "When you get clutch hits and a guys is pitching well, that's tough to beat."
Hays High (5-3, 1-1) got just three hits in the first five innings off Mauler (4-1), and left four runners stranded. In Great Bend's fifth, the Panthers put up four runs, three charged to Hays High junior starter Kelton Rule (1-1), as he walked two in the inning.
"We didn't compete hard enough," Leo said. "Kelton was behind the whole ball game."
Through four innings and four batters in the fifth, Rule allowed eight hits, five runs with two walks before senior Matt Malott finished the game.
Hays High had a three-run sixth, but Great Bend put up three more in the seventh.
Hays High senior Taylor Pfannenstiel hit a two-run homer in the seventh. The left-handed batter hit his first of two on the day to the opposite field, hits on most days that would have been caught in left-center field.
"We just never could get (Mauler) figured out, and couldn't get a comfortable, balanced position," Leo said.
In the nightcap, Hays High jumped out early on Pfannenstiel's solo homer to left, but Great Bend responded with four runs in the third. Downing (3-0) walked Andrew Kutina to lead off the inning. Kutina advanced on a single by Holt. After a pair of stolen bases to put runners at second and third, Great Bend executed the suicide squeeze that ended up scoring two more runs as Downing made the throw to first.
"We practice defending that, particularly second and third situation,"¬ Leo said. "If he arm fakes, he's probably going to have him coming home, but we didn't react what we practiced for."
Hays High came storming back in its third with four runs, taking advantage of a walk and a hit batsmen by Jonas, an RBI double for senior Sam Rohleder and a two-run single for senior Austin Klaus.
The inning gave Hays High a 5-4 lead, which the Indians never relinquished. The Indians tacked on three more runs in the fourth and one in the sixth, while Downing worked through five innings before handing the ball to senior left-hander Nathan Meier, who gave up Great Bend's final two runs.
"Logan Downing did an outstanding job," Leo said. "He gave us the chance to win that second game."
Downing walked three and had five strikeouts, backed by a 2-for-4 Game 2 for junior Justin Klaus, and a three-RBI game for Austin Klaus. Sam Rohleder also drove in a pair of runs.
With the split, Hays High is 1-1 in WAC play with three more conference doubleheaders, including a May 9 makeup date with Liberal. The Indians travel to Larned on Tuesday for a 4 p.m. nonconference doubleheader.