HAYS – The Hays Larks kicked off their 75th anniversary weekend celebration with a 10-4 win over the Denver Cougars in front of another large Larks Park crowd Friday night. The Larks improve to 7-1 overall and 4-1 in the Rocky Mountain Baseball League.
Many former Larks players including former Major Leaguer Jim Leyritz were in attendance and recognized between innings.
Grant Lung had three of the Larks 11 hits and drove in two runs. Cam Pehrson, Cade Brown and Leo Jiminian all added two hits with Jiminian driving in two runs.
Starter Wyatt Divis (3-0) allowed one run on seven hits with six strikeouts and no walks over six innings for the win. Jackson Blue allowed three runs on two hits over two innings of relief. Cade Brown closed it out with a scoreless ninth.
Down 1-0, the Larks took the lead for good with a three run fourth. Palmer Hutchison and Cam Pehrson had run scoring singles and Grant Lung added an RBI double. After adding a run in the sixth on a Lung single, they put the game away with four in the seventh then two in the eighth. Leo Jiminian drove in two runs with a double to left. Zach Henry added a sacrifice fly scoring Jiminian.
The Cougars (3-9) scored three in the top of the eighth but the Larks answered with two in the bottom of the inning for the final margin.
The Larks and Cougars play game two of the three-game series Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. before closing out the series Sunday night at 7:00 p.m. You can hear Sunday’s game on KAYS (1400-AM, 94.3-FM).