HHS Finishes Second
Up against a sub-.500 team in its third game, and the home field advantage on its side, the Hays High School baseball team, on paper, seemed well-equipped for a run at a fifth straight Western Plains Diamond Classic championship.
In Saturday's first of two games for the Indians, Salina Central had other plans, taking advantage of several Indian mistakes and miscues for a 9-5 win on the Indians' home field to claim the 2008 tourney championship with a 4-0 mark.
The Mustangs became the first team since McPherson in 2003 to snatch the title away from Hays High, and won their third overall Classic title, boosting their record to 9-9 on the year.
"Central always comes to this tournament and plays well," Hays High coach Frank Leo said following the tourney's conclusion Saturday. "You have to have respect for them no matter what record they have. That was the tale of the game."
The Central win took all the drama out of a run-rule win for the Indians over Ellis, a newcomer to varsity baseball and the tourney field.
The two teams battled in the final game of the 26th annual classic to a 12-2 Hays High victory after five innings.
Even after the win, Leo was still thinking about the Central game, which not only took the title away, but also gave the Indians just their fourth setback of the season with four Western Athletic Conference games left in the regular season.
"We made base running mistakes, had defensive mistakes, and there just wasn't much we did right in that ball game,"¬ Leo said.
Salina Central, on the other hand, did plenty of things right. The first was shown in the form of senior pitcher Wyatt Hall, named the tourney's MVP, who threw a compete game, scattered seven Indian hits and kept Hays High (12-4) off balance the whole game, a task not often matched by Hays High junior starter Kelton Rule or the Hays High defense.
"There were a couple plays we weren't nearly aggressive enough," Leo said.
The defensive miscues started out of the gate when a two-out hit sailed right over the head of senior right fielder Matt Malott. What normally would have been an out, Leo said, turned into a two-RBI triple for freshman Michael Hoffart, giving the Mustangs a 2-0 lead.
"Matt misjudged a line drive, and typically he is money on balls," Leo said.
The first inning set the tone for a three-error day for the Indians.
"It just kept escalating and we could never put our thumb in the dike," Leo said. "Salina Central took advantage of everything we gave them."
Malott led off the Indians' first with a solo home run, his first of the season, but that was all the offense Hays High could muster until the fourth inning, already down 7-1.
Rule (2-2) walked two batters in a two-run second for Salina Central, and Hays High committed two errors in a two-run third for the Mustangs, one by senior Austin Klaus at shortstop and the other by senior Sam Rohleder at third base with the bases loaded.
"Kelton Rule was behind hitters," Leo said. "This is a game we have to take a lesson from. It's a loss, but we have to learn from the loss."
Hays High scored its first run in the fourth on an RBI walk offered up by Hall, and another on an RBI groundout by senior designated hitter Nathan Meier.
In the fifth inning after working four innings with three strikeouts, four walks and six runs allowed, Rule was replaced by sophomore Dan Moritz, who had two strikeouts in the fifth, but gave up two more Salina Central runs in the sixth. The pitching switch and Mortiz's performance in the fifth gave the Indians a shot in the arm, but a great diving foul catch near the fence by junior Seth Myers for the Mustangs in the fifth halted any momentum the Indians could muster.
"The easiest way to stop (the momentum) is get a pitcher to go out there, slam the door and throw strikes and we couldn't do that early," Leo said. "Their kid did a good job."
The Indians mustered two more runs in the seventh on an RBI groundout for Malott, and a wild pitch, but a called strikeout on junior Tom Rohleder put the finishing touches on the Mustang crown.
"That game was a team loss," Leo said. "We still made a game of it, but you look at everything we gave away and it's surprising it was a 9-5 game."
In the final game of the tourney, Hays High couldn't get much going in the first inning on Ellis sophomore starter Dillon Kinderknecht, but scored four runs in the second to open the game up.
Kinderknecht's two walks, a hit batter, a Railroader error, and two Indian hits was all it took to get things started. In the second inning, Hays High scored six runs on one hit, four Railer errors, two Kinderknecht wild pitches, two walks and another hit batter.
Sophomore reliever Derek Meyer (1-0) got the win in two innings of relief for Moritz. Sophomore Tanner Willhoft also saw an inning on the hill.
The run-rule game was the fourth of the day as Hays High's game with Salina Central was made up from the night before when cold, wet weather forced a postponement from Friday's nightcap. Friday's games were played in wind chill that often dipped under freezing.
"Mother Nature didn't cooperate yesterday and we had to eliminate a few things," Leo said. "You really have to be proud of all the teams (Friday) with what we had to play through to get those games in."
The Salina Central loss puts Hays High in a tie for second place in terms of sub-state seeding with McPherson. Great Bend leads that race with just three losses. All teams have four games left. Regardless of home or away, the road to state will likely go through one of those two teams.
"We just have to make sure our game is back together," Leo said. "We have to put it together this week, and get ready for sub-state -- wherever it might be and whoever it might be against."
Earlier in the day, Salina Central defeated Goodland 16-4, and Ellis defeated Goodland 15-3. The Cowboys finished the tournament with a 1-3 mark, as did newcomer Ellis. Belle Plaine, which played its final game Friday, also finished 1-3.
Friday
Hays High wasted little time jumping on top of Class 4A Goodland in Friday's third game. The Indians put up eight runs in the first inning, and three in the second, en route to the 13-0 run-rule victory in five innings.
Rule, Sam Rohleder, junior Logan Downing, and junior Jay Sanders each had two hits for Hays High with Downing and Sanders each driving in two runs.
Tom Rohleder also drove in a pair, handing Downing (5-0) the win. Downing threw all five innings with three strikeouts, giving up just two Goodland hits.
The game before, Goodland rallied from a 7-3 deficit in the seventh inning to claim a 9-7 win over Belle Plaine, and Salina Central capped the day with a 19-4 win over Ellis.
Belle Plaine, in the first game Friday, claimed a 21-17 win over Ellis.
Flyers upend Canadiens, in Eastern Conference finals
MONTREAL (AP) -- Scott Upshall scored with 3:04 remaining in the third period and the Philadelphia Flyers advanced to the Eastern Conference final with a 6-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.
Upshall deflected Jeff Carter's shot past Carey Price to give Philadelphia its second and final lead of the game as the Flyers won the conference semifinal in five games.
The Flyers are the second team to reach the conference finals after the Presidents' Trophy-winning Detroit Red Wings got there in the West by sweeping the Colorado Avalanche.
Philadelphia will face the winner of the Pittsburgh Penguins-New York Rangers series. The Penguins lead 3-1 and Game 5 is Sunday in Pittsburgh.
R.J. Umberger had two goals and an assist and Martin Biron stopped 31 shots for the Flyers, whose last appearance in the East final was in 2004 when they lost to Tampa Bay.
The Flyers' win also assured the first all-U.S. Stanley Cup final since 2003 and extended Canada's title drought to 15 years. Montreal was the last Canadian team to win it all in 1993.
Mike Richards and Scott Hartnell scored as Philadelphia got three second-period goals to take a 4-3 lead. Mike Knuble scored into an empty net with 50 seconds left.
Andrei Kostitsyn scored at 2:13 of the third to draw Montreal even at 4.
Kostitsyn took Tomas Plekanec's drop pass and used Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen as a screen to put a wrist shot past Biron.
Price returned to the Montreal net after he was replaced in Game 4 by Jaroslav Halak. The 20-year-old rookie made 32 saves.