Baseball: Bolstered by big inning, Manogue beats Douglas 8-5

The Douglas High baseball team was cruising along just fine Wednesday afternoon in the second round of the Northern 4A Playoffs before a freak play got the ball rolling in Manogue's direction.

Manogue capitalized on a close call at home with one out in the bottom of the fourth and parlayed that into an eight-run inning that ended up being the difference in the ball game as the Miners captured an 8-5 win in Reno.

Until then, Douglas had been riding a 4-0 lead and sophomore starter Michael Whalin was sifting his way through a five-hit shutout.

"We just had one bad inning and we got beat, but that's how it goes sometimes," Douglas coach John Glover said. "You have to give Manogue credit, they put the eight-spot up and had some really key hits to get the job done."

The loss put Douglas in an elimination game against Reed at Manogue Thursday at 1 p.m., with Manogue awaiting the winner at 4 p.m.

Manogue's Mike Olivo led off the fourth with a single to center and Whalin hit John O'Gara with a pitch to put runners on first and second.

They moved to second on third on a sacrifice from Craig Batori, setting up the controversial call.

Pat Riggs bounced a grounder to third with Olivo a sturdy four or five feet toward home. Douglas' Troy Torres fielded the ball on one bounce and began pursuing Olivo down the third baseline.

Torres tossed the ball to Tiger catcher Jordan Hadlock, who was standing on the outside edge of the basepath. Hadlock stretched to apply the tag on Olivo, who appeared to dive well beyond the allowed three-feet outside the basepath to avoid the tag. Olivo was ruled safe on the play, which sparked all of Manogue's scoring for the day.

Ben Hewson followed with a one-run double, and Douglas opted to intentionally walk Manogue slugger Joe Wieland to load the bases.

Freshman Kameron VanWinkle came on and struck out Damon Elder for the second out of the inning, but Evan Miller came up and belted a two-run single to tie the game.

The Miners did the rest of their damage with a bases-loaded walk later in the inning and a base-clearing triple.

Douglas came back with a run in the top of the fifth as Torres singled Tim Rudnick, who led off the inning with a triple, home. That would be the remainder of Douglas' scoring for the game.

Things started promisingly enough in the game for Douglas as Hadlock led the game off with a home run (his second leadoff home run in as many days) and Tanner Thomas singled to left.

Rudnick singled and Tyler Hoelzen reached on an error after attempting a sacrifice bunt.

Torres was hit by a pitch, bringing Rudnick home and Tyler May belted a two-run single down the third baseline.

Douglas is now in the position of needing three wins in the next two days to qualify for state and advance to the regional title game.

"We're going to try to play it one game at a time and win the next one," Glover said. "Our backs are against the wall now and we'll find out what we're made of."