Jacob Wyeth’s walk-off sacrifice fly lifted the Hays Larks to their fifth straight win, a 1-0 shutout of the Colorado Roughriders.
Frank Leo postgame
Wednesday night’s meeting between the Larks and Roughriders featured two really good pitching performances.
Larks’ starter Landon Shirer turned in his best performance of the season. He allowed just two runs while walking four and striking out four in six shoutout innings.
His counterpart, Colorado’s Matt Erickson allowed six hits and struck out seven while allowing three walks in eight shutout innings.
But unfortunately for both neither one of them factored into the decision.
It would take the Roughriders until the seventh inning to get a runner to third but Larks’ reliever Drew Buhr was able to induce a double play to end the inning.
The two teams combined to turn five double plays in the game.
The Larks didn’t get a runner to third until the eighth inning but left two on in the inning.
In the ninth inning Hays’ Palmer Hutchison led off the inning with a bloop single to left then after a Grant Lung sacrifice bunt and a Max McGuire single the Larks brought pitch hitter Jacob Wyeth to the plate as a pinch hitter.
Wyeth jumped ahead in the count 2-0 and then lifted a pitch to deep right field that allowed Hutchison to score easily, give Hays the walk-off win.
Game highlights
Jacob Ensz worked two innings of relief for Hays and got the win. He allowed just one hit and struck out three in two innings of relief.
Brady Strickert got the loss for Colorado. He allowed one run on two hits in two-thirds innings of relief.
Matt Cavanaugh and Wyatt Divis each collected a pair of hits for the Larks.
Hays improved to 17-6 on the season and will go for the three-game sweep of the Roughriders Thursday at Larks Park.