This has been the summer of discontent for Dennis Young and the Nevada Bighorns. Losses are piling up faster than the San Francisco Giants pile up frequent flyer miles.
In short, it's been a disaster.
The Bighorns fell to 1-15 after dropping a doubleheader to the Atwater Aviators, 11-4 and 16-6, Wednesday afternoon at Western Nevada College.
The locals will have a couple of days to lick their collective wounds before facing the San Francisco Seagulls in a three-game series starting Friday at 5 p.m. The teams play an 11 a.m. doubleheader on Saturday.
"You can't make any more excuses," Young said after the sweep. "We're 16 games into the season, and we've played two good games all year. These guys have to figure it out.
"Maybe these guys came out here for a vacation and don't care. Maybe I have too many out-of-state players and they want to be on vacation. I hope things get better."
In the opener, the Big horns held Atwater scoreless in only the fourth inning. The Aviators scored in the other six innings, and the Bighorns didn't come close to matching that output, scoring all their runs in the fourth to cut Atwater's lead to 5-4. Three of those runs came on a homer by Tyler Widiker.
Atwater, led by Adam Mund's run-scoring single in the sixth and two-run double in the seventh, scored six runs over the final three innings to close out the game.
It didn't get any better in the second game.
Jason Sirak started, and easily retired the first two batters to start the game. Joe Greco and Kevin Grove singled to put runners on first and second. Sirak failed to keep Greco close by either stepping off the rubber or throwing to second, and he paid the pride. Greco broke for third and scored on the play when Widiker threw the ball into left field. Grove scored on a single by Joe Medeiros.
Nevada's Oscar Gonzalez hit a one-out double in the second, but was stranded at third when Scott Hastings struck out to end the inning, setting the stage for an ugly third inning that saw the Aviators score seven times on eight hits.
The key blow was a three-run homer by Matt McKinnon off Sirak.
"They found the spots," Young said. "Atwater can hit the ball, give them some credit."
The Bighorns put a nice two-out rally together in the bottom of the inning, as Kyle Dodge hit a triple to left-centerfield and scored on a single by Jessie Grace, who came around to score on Taylor Banks to make it 9-2.
Sirak failed to retire a batter in the fourth, giving up singles to Grove and Medeiros plus an off-field homer by Chris Van Dyke. Ryan Buscemi finished the inning without further damage.
The Bighorns scored two more runs when Gonzalez doubled and scored on a single by Ryan Humphrey. Dodge drove in the second run with a single.
The Aviators scored an unearned run in the fifth and one in the sixth to make it 14-4. After the Bighorns made it 14-5 with a run in the sixth, the Aviators tacked two on in the seventh for a 16-5 bulge before the Bighorns scored an unearned run in the seventh for the final score of the game
