Baseball: Douglas' season comes to an end against Damonte

For the first time since the 2001 season, the Douglas baseball team has gone two-and-out at the regional playoffs.

After opening the tournament with a 6-0 loss at top-ranked Reno on Tuesday, Douglas fell 9-4 to Damonte Ranch at Carson High on Wednesday. The Damonte loss ended the Tigers season at 15-14 overall.

"It's a tough way to go out," Douglas coach John Glover said. "The kids had a good year. They fought hard and that's what we asked of them.

"I'm really proud of the seniors. They worked their butts off for four years and they've been a lot of fun to be around. It's a good group of kids."

Wednesday's game saw considerably more offense than when the two teams met up a little over three weeks ago with the same starting pitchers (Damonte's Kevin Schulowitz and Douglas' Beau Battista) and finished with Douglas winning 2-1.

"That's high school baseball," Glover said. "Just a couple of weeks difference and you get a completely different game.

"Damonte swung the bats really well today in key situations. Beau pitched decent, but they got some hits when they needed to."

The Mustangs took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first, but Douglas answered right back with three runs in the top of the second, manufactured primarily from the bottom of the lineup.

Damonte retook the lead at 5-3 on a two-run double from Ryan Rieger in the bottom of the second.

Douglas got a rally going in the top of the fourth when Ryan Ford led off with a shot off the yellow stripe along Carson's left field wall. The ball bounced back into the outfield, allowing Ford a double.

Cody Begovich then singled with one out to move Ford to third and Battista hit a two-out single to bring Ford home and move Begovich to third.

Brett Anderson drew a walk to load the bases, but the threat ended there as Schulowitz induced a pop foul to third.

The Mustangs manufactured a run in the bottom half to push the lead to 6-4 and then put the game out of reach with a three-run sixth.