OMAHA – The Hays Eagles Senior American Legion baseball team spit their first two games at the Battle of Omaha Monday. The Eagles rallied from an early deficit to beat Burke-Primetime (NE) 11-9 in extra innings then were held to four hits and lost 11-4 to the Minot (ND) Vistas at Burke high school.
The Eagles (7-4) were held hitless for the first three innings and fell behind 5-0 in their opener against Burke-Primetime then scored six in the top of the fifth to take the lead. Caden Morgan started the rally with a one-out run-scoring single to right. Ben Krannawitter followed with a single to left to load the bases then Brady Kreutzer doubled to deep left which scored three. Dalton Dale’s two-out single to left scored Kreutzer to tie the game. Carson Spray then doubled to right which scored Dale.
A bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the inning tied the game 6-6.
In extra innings, Spray singled home a run in the top of the seventh only to see Burke answer in the bottom if the inning.
Remington Cox walked to lead off the eighth then later scored on a wild pitch. Garrett Wellbrock drew a bases loaded walk to push the lead to 9-7. Dalton Dale followed with a double scoring Brayden Dreher and Ben Krannawitter which built the lead to 11-7.
Burke scored two in the bottom of the eighth and had the bases loaded with two outs when Carson Spray got a groundout to end the game.
Spray (2-0) pitched the final inning in relief and picked up the win. Starter Blake Schmidt allowed five runs on five hits with five walks and no strikeouts. Brady Kreutzer followed and allowed one run in one inning of work. Dalton Dale they pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings.
Kreutzer, Dale and Spray all had two hits. Kreutzer and Dale both drove in three runs while Spray knocked in two.
The Eagles fell behind 5-0 in their second game against Minot before scoring a run in the bottom of the fourth and three in the fifth to pull within 6-4 but the Vistas answered with three in the top of the sixth for the 9-4 victory.
Garrett Wellbrock (2-2) allowed nine runs (eight earned) on 11 hits with two strikeouts and three walks over 5 1/3 innings and suffered the loss.
Kreutzer, Wellbrock, Caden Morgan and Gage Porter had the only hits in the game for Hays who plays the Omaha Spikes at 2:00 p.m. Tuesday.