TOPEKA - The Hays Hammer 18U finished runner-up at the Perfect Game Kansas Invitational over the weekend at the Bettis Family Sports Complex. After going 4-0 in pool play in Friday and Saturday, the Hammer beat the Midwest Prospects out of Topeka 3-2 in Sunday morning’s first semifinal. They later lost 11-3 to the Cavalier Baseball Club out of Johnson County in the finals.
The Hammer are now 11-6 on the season. They are scheduled to host the Salina Hawks in a doubleheader at Larks Park on Wednesday.
The 16U Hammer went 0-3-1 and the 15U 1-3 at the same tournament and didn't make it out of pool play.
Semifinals: Hays 3, Midwest Prospects 2
The Hammer
scored two in the top of the third to build a 3-1 lead and held on the rest of
the way.
Bradyn Dreher gave Hays a 1-0 lead in the top of the first with a double to left. After the Prospects tied the game with an unearned run in the bottom of the inning, Dalton Dale gave them the lead for good with a two-run double.
Dale had two of the Hammer’s six hits.
Garrett Wellbrock (4-1) allowed one earned run on three hits with six strikeouts and two walks in six innings and picked up the win. Dalton Dale recorded the first two outs in the seventh before walking two. He got a pop up to second to end the game, leaving the tying run at third and the potential winning run at second.
Finals: Cavaliers-Maroon 11, Hays 3
(5 innings)
The Hammer scored two in
the top of the fifth to pull within a run but the Cavaliers answered with seven
in the bottom of the inning for the run-rule victory.
Jack Fields (0-1) allowed only four runs on six hits with three strikeouts and five walks in his first start of the summer. Bradyn Dreher allowed seven runs on five hits in 2/3 innings relief.
Dreher gave Hays an early 1-0 lead with a single to center in the first.
Trailing 4-1, the Hammer scored two in the fifth. Gage Porter drove in the first run on a squeeze play which scored Fields. Tyson Jimenez drove in the second run with a double to center which scored Caden Morgan.
The Hammer were held to four hits in the game — doubles from Garrett Wellbrock and Jiminez and a pair of singles from Dalton Dale and Dreher.