James Huckaby, baseball coach for Fernley High School, saw his Vaqueros get run over by Galena High 13-3 in five innings in Reno on Wednesday.
But Huckaby couldn't fault his 3A club for losing to the Grizzlies, who are emerging as one of the Northern 4A's top baseball teams with their 7-0 record.
"I'm not seeing many 3A teams who can beat those guys," said Huckaby, whose Vaqueros have posted a respectable 8-3 record of their own to start the season. "It was a good experience to play Galena as far as seeing some baseball at the next level. A few of our players want to play in college, and now they've seen what they actually have to do and how hard they need to work if they are going to have a chance."
Galena showed some muscle during the game, recording five home runs. In fact, Galena's first two batters, D.J. Stacey and Joe Hooft, opened the Grizzly half of the first with home runs to give Galena a quick 2-0 lead. Hooft would later connect for another homer in the game.
Also hitting home runs for the Grizzlies were Billy Paganetti and Mark Folgner.
Fernley scored three runs in each of the first four innings to pull ahead 12-3. One run by Galena in the bottom of the fifth gave the Grizzlies the 10-run lead they needed to close out the game.
The Vaqueros who recorded hits for Fernley were Ty Reeder, Levi Diaz and Matt Lambeth. Lambeth had Fernley's only RBI as the Vaqueros' other two runs scored on errors.
Dan Knox was the winning pitcher for Galena. Diaz was given the loss for the Vaqueros.
Fernley will be tested this weekend with a doubleheader on Saturday at Bishop Manogue High in Reno.
