So far this season, no one outside of the Douglas baseball team has been able to stake a claim to the Tigers' home field.
Seven home games. Seven wins.
When the Tigers arrived at the field for the doubleheader against Carson Saturday morning, they found a large white "C" painted in the infield.
"It's been a rivalry a long time and that kind of stuff has happened before, it's not the first time," Douglas coach John Glover said. "We didn't like it, but (Carson) coach Steve Cook was very apologetic and he was embarrassed by it. We're not going to blame anybody, It's just part of the rivalry.
"It got the kids fired up, it was just an extra piece of motivation and we'd like to thank whoever did it for that."
Douglas spent the next two hours reclaiming their home field, pounding out 10 hits in a 15-5 victory that ended after five innings due to the mercy rule.
The Tigers then prevailed in game two, scoring all five of its runs in the last three innings capped by a one-run walk off double from Willie Morgan to take the 5-4 victory and the season series against the Senators.
"That was wild," Glover said. "It was a good day for us to bounce back from a tough loss and win a 10-run game and then win one in the seventh. You couldn't ask for more from our kids."
Douglas trailed 4-3 heading into the bottom of the seventh and found itself with two outs and Phil Mannelly on first with Nate Whalin coming to the plate.
Whalin hit a routine ground ball up the middle, but the fielder dropped it, and Mannelly slid safely into second, extending the game.
Ryan Pruitt stepped up and looped a double over third, allowing Mannelly to score and putting a runner on third.
Morgan then ended the game with a sharp line drive single to left.
"We didn't have a ton of hits in the second game, but the ones we got were definitely at the right time," Glover said.
Up to the sixth inning, Carson starter Tony Fagan had more or less stumped the Tigers offensively.
He threw three no-hit innings before Tyler May broke that up with the first of his three doubles in the game. Fagan allowed a run in each of the fourth and fifth innings, but had Carson in decent position to win the game until another May double brought Brandon Bernard around to tie the score at three.
Carson got back up in the top of the seventh when Kyle Stone singled through the middle to score Joe Skates and leading up to Whalin's ground ball in the bottom half, Fagan appeared to have the win in hand, having already struck out seven while walking just two.
On the other side of the ball, Whalin gave up two first-inning runs and got hit in the head with a line drive.
"We were really worried about him, he got hit hard," Glover said. "But he came back and just threw a great game."
Whalin struck out four and walked one while allowing six hits to pick up the complete-game win.
Earlier in the day, Douglas got up early on a first inning home run from Mannelly, who went 5-for-5 with two RBIs, four runs scored and a stolen base on the day.
Carson took a brief 3-1 lead in the second thanks to a Fagan home run and a Markus Adams single that brought two runs around, but Douglas came back with eight runs in the bottom of the frame to pull away.
Whalin homered and drove in three runs, Morgan had two of his four RBIs on the day in the first game and Cory Eilers collected a double.
May picked up the game one win, striking out one and walking one in five innings of work.
-- Joey Crandall can be reached at jcrandall@recordcourier.com or at (775) 782-5121, ext. 212.
