Shane Fencl was the smallest player on the field Friday afternoon, but he
played the biggest role.
Fencl went 3-for-4 with a homer and four RBI to lead the Douglas Tigers to a
12-5 win and a sweep of the Carson Senators Friday afternoon at Ron McNutt
Field.
Douglas finished the regular season with a 15-3 record while Carson dropped
to 13-5. Both teams will host first-round playoff games on Tuesday. Carson
will host Wooster, while Douglas hosts Spanish Springs.
What made Douglas¹ victory even more impressive is that coach John Glover
rested catcher Beau Davis, outfielder Tyler Hoelzen, shortstop Tim Rudnick
and third baseman Troy Torres, but the offense still produced 12 hits.
"We played consistent all day I thought," Douglas coach John Glover said.
"That's what we're trying to do at this time of the year.
"He (Fencl) is a good player. We brought him up last year. It's good to see
him do that. As a coach, you always wonder what the future holds. To see him
have a good day, that was nice."
Fencl didn't have a lot to say about himself in a post-game interview. He
talked more about the team's play.
"It was kinda, yeah, it was my best day," said Fencl, who added that it was
his first homer of the year. "It was a team effort. Everybody produced. We
had runs (almost) every inning. We played the way the Tigers play."
And while the Tigers are entering the playoffs under a full head of steam,
the Senators are going in with a three-game losing streak under their belts.
"We've just got to get ready for Wooster," Carson coach Cody Farnworth said.
"We're starting over. We'll go back to basics and try to do what we were
doing at the beginning of the year.
"It seems like we are tired. I don't know if we didn't condition them enough. We've just hit a bad stretch. We want to be peaking at this time and we're not."
And, it seemed that whatever desire that Carson started the game with evaporated after the Tigers scored four quick runs off Carson starter Tyler Hutchins, who departed after facing just six hitters.
Jeff Crozier and Brett Anderson walked to start the game. Tyler May folowed
with a run-scoring double to right-centerfield, sending Anderson to third.
Tanner Thomas singled home Anderson and May, and Fencl came through with a
single to left to score Kameron Van Winkle, who reached when he was hit by a
pitch.
"He (Hutchins) never got untracked," Farnworth said. "They're swinging it
well. They are playing good baseball."
David Perce struck out Dan King and Brett Hartley to end the inning.
The Tigers made it 6-0 in the top of the third, as Thomas and Fencl hit
back-to-back run-scoring doubles.
Carson trimmed the deficit to 6-2 in the bottom of the third on a run-scoring single by Brett Valley and and a two-out throwing error by Fencl.
Douglas roared back with three in the fourth off Cody Barr, who got the
final two outs in the third. Vann Winkle led off the inning with a homer to
left, and after Thomas singled and moved to second on a wild pitch, Fencl
banged a homer to make it 9-2.
