Hays Post Sports
WICHITA – The Hays Larks come up one win shy of a return trip to the NBC World Series finals Friday, falling to the Lonestar Kraken 9-8 at Eck Stadium.
The Larks (32-5-1) trailed by as many as seven runs in the game but came back to force extra innings. But in the 10th, Lonestar pushed a run across to advance to the NBC World Series finals Saturday against the Hutchinson Monarchs.
The Larks broke onto the scoreboard early, scoring a run on Thomas Lyssy RBI single, putting Hays up 1-0.
Lonestar answered back with two runs in the bottom of the second and then exploded for six more runs in the fourth inning.
The Kraken got a homerun and then took advantage of five straight walks, six total in the inning, for the 8-1 lead.
Hays got a run back on a wild pitch in the top of the fifth and then added two runs in the seventh.
The Larks took advantage of three free passes in the inning. Hays scored on a Trent Baker RBI single and a Brady Kreutzer walk with the bases loaded, cutting the Kraken's lead to 8-4.
Hays got back-to-back singles to open the top of the eighth inning and then opened the scoring with a two-run Tabor Stokes double, cutting the deficit to 8-6.
After two men were retired, Baker singled in Stokes, making it 8-7.
Still trailing by one, in the top of the ninth inning, the Larks manufactured the tying run to send the game to extra innings.
A walk and a stolen base by Kaleb Duncan, followed by a sacrifice bunt, put the tying run at third. Two batters later, Stokes grounded out to the shortstop, scoring the run from third and tying the game at eight with two outs.
Both teams threatened to score in their half of the 10th inning, leaving two runners on base.
Then in the bottom of the 10th inning, Preston Curtis connected on the third homerun of the game of the Kraken, lifting Lonestar to a 9-8 victory.
Tabor Stokes collected two hits, runs and three RBIs for the Larks. Trent Baker added two hits, runs and RBIs.
Julio Ramos suffered the loss. He allowed just the one run, on five hits, with eight strikeouts over six and two-thirds innings.