John Holten
RENO — It was a case of feast or famine for Carson High’s baseball team on the second day of the Mike Bearman Memorial Tournament.
Carson opened Friday’s proceedings in Sparks with a 10-2 win over Reed, thanks to the pitching of Brandon Allen and the hiiting of John Holton, who had three hits and drove in four runs. In the nightcap at Reno High, the Huskies’ duo of Duncan Wilmot and Christian Chamberlain combined to no-hit the Senators, 10-0.
Carson won’t have much time to lick its wounds. The Senators return to tournament play today at 1 p.m. against Douglas and at 4 against Galena. Both games will be at Ron McNutt Field.
Carson coach Brian Manoukian said the offensive performance in the two games was decieving.
“We struck out nine times against Reed, and the hits happened to fall in,” he said. “We only struck out four times against Reno. We hit a few hard balls to right which were caught.”
In the opener, Brandon Allen threw five strong innings, allowing just one earned run and three hits. He departed with a 7-2 lead, and Terek Been threw two scoreless innings in a non-save situation.
Allen threw 67 pitches, 48 for strikes in what may have been the best start of his CHS career.
He was in command throughout, and was especially effective locating his breaking ball.
“Definitely,” Allen said. “I let the hitters hit. I had a good defense behind me.”
Allen walked just one batter, and his breaking ball was working so well pitching coach Cody Farnworth was calling it early in the count.
“He threw well,” Farnworth said.
“They were looking fastball (early in the count), so we started pitching them backwards a bit. When you have a pitcher that can do that it makes it tough on the hitters.”
“We were going off-speed and off-speed, and then they would be lunging at the fastball.”
Carson gave Allen plenty of support from the outset. scoring three in the second and one each in the third and fourth.
Brandon Kozuth’s run-scoring single in the first plated Alec Leighton, who doubled. That was Reed’s only lead of the contest.
A hit batter and walk put runners on first and second. Bryce Moyle followed with a single and then Cory Azevedo, the No. 9 hitter, drove in two to make it 3-1. Conner Pradere and Josiah Pongasi were retired to end the uprising.
Carson made it 4-1 in the third thanks to two Reed errors, and then a run-scoring single by Holton and Azevedo’s infield out sparked a two-run fifth and made it 7-1. Reed cut the deficit to 7-2 with an unearned run.
Quin Pferschy retired the first two hitters he faced in the sixth, and then Allen reached on a single and Been was plunked for the second time in the game. After Kyle Krebs walked to load the bases, Holton followed with a deep drive to left field that landed on the warning track and scored all three baserunners.
Been came on in relief, giving up two hits in the sixth without a run.
He hit a batter in the seventh, but held the Raiders scoreless.
Against Reno, Carson did have some good swings, but only had four baserunners in the 5-plus inning game. Three of the runners reached on errors by third baseman Chris Haines and Joe Nelson reached on a walk.
Holton gave up singles to Garrett Gouldsmith to start the game, and Cooper Krug followed with a sacrifice fly. Hayes Reideman followed with a two-run double and Christian Chamberlain followed with an RBI single to make it 4-0. The damage might have been more extensive, but Chamberlain tagged early to go from second to third on Ryan Boucher’s fly ball. Carson appealed and got the call for the third out.
Krug had a two-run single to make it 6-0, and the Huskies added one in the fourth, two in the fifth on Brock Tsukamoto’s single in the fifth.
Chris Haines’ triple with none out in the sixth finished the game on the mercy rule.
“We made some mental mistakes on defense (missed cutoff throws, wrong base coverages),” Manoukian said. “Those things got us in a hole early on. You can’t make mistakes like that against Reno.”
