Senior Legion’s season ends at districts

    June’s baseball games felt like a long time ago when the Pinnacle Bank Imperial Senior Legion baseball team took to the field for district play the past week.
    The Horns closed out the regular season on a seven-game win streak. But with the team’s last game June 28 and the juniors playing in the post season, quality practice time has been hard to come by.
    “The seniors hadn’t played in a few weeks and it showed. There’s really no replacement for game time scenarios, but those games are hard to find while everyone is playing junior districts and some in junior state,” Head Coach Bruce Peterson said.
    The juniors wrapped up their tournament run Thursday and four were back on the field Saturday in the seniors’ lineup against Sheridan County.
    The Regulators opened tournament play Friday with a win over Bridgeport and carried the momentum into their game with Imperial.
    Sheridan County got to Imperial pitchers early and jumped out to a two-run lead to start the game. Imperial was unable to answer in the bottom of the inning.
    After giving up six more runs in the top of the second inning, the Horns scored their first run of the game in the bottom half when back-to-back batters hit by pitches set up Mason Wallin to score on a Morel Jurado single.
    Imperial retired Regulator batters in order to start the third inning. Offensively, the Horns took advantage of back-to-back errors to score Tysen Lempke and Thomas Reeves.
    Trailing 3-8, Imperial gave up four runs in the top of the fourth and one in the fifth inning. The Horns had runners on second and third in the fourth inning, but were unable to score any more runs in the 3-13 loss.
    The Horns were out hit 4-13 in the game.
    Colin O’Neil, Nolan Burrell and Wallin pitched. They struck out seven and walked three batters.
    “Across the board, hitting, fielding, pitching, we weren’t as sharp as we should’ve been. I had no intention of having to use three pitchers the first night and this created problems for the rest of the tournament,” Peterson said.
    The Horns were able to dig themselves out of a hole Saturday against Bridgeport.
    A leadoff double set the Bombers up to score two first inning runs. Reeves led off for Imperial and scored on a Burrell single.
    Bridgeport kept the pressure on in the second inning. Two consecutive doubles, followed by three-straight singles plated three runs in the top half of the inning.
    The Horns responded. Keenan Cole led off the inning with a triple and teammates followed with three triples. By the end of the inning, Imperial had tied the game at five.
    A double play at home and first kept Bridgeport from gaining much of an upper hand in the third inning. Trailing 5-6, Imperial stayed hot at the plate. As the Horns put the ball in play, a barrage of Bridgeport errors helped Imperial score five runs.
    As the defense tightened its grip on the Bombers, Imperial’s offense added three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to give the Horns a 15-7 win.
    Cole, Bryder Hickey, O’Neil, Camron Lempke and Cooper Dillan batted in the bottom half of the lineup for Imperial and scored 11 of the Horns’ runs.
    “We did get some key hits from the bottom half of our order, including a ground rule double from Hickey,” Peterson said.
    Gavin Wisnieski, O’Neil and C. Lempke allowed five hits and two walks in the game while striking out two batters.
    The win set up a rematch with Sheridan County Monday.
    On offense, T. Lempke scored early in the game, while on defense Imperial shut down the Regulators with the bases loaded.
    Imperial struggled to bring runners home in the second, third and fourth innings. Sheridan County added five runs over that span to take the lead.
    Tristan Jablonski singled and scored on a T. Lempke single in the fifth inning, but the Regulators responded with four runs in the bottom half of the inning.
    Neither team scored over the final two innings and Imperial’s season ended with the 2-9 loss.
    Dillan and T. Lempke struck out seven and allowed 10 hits and eight walks in the game.
    “Although the senior tournament didn’t go the way we wanted, it was a great season for these seniors and some of these players have helped pave the way for the juniors behind them,” Peterson said.
    Imperial finishes the season with a 12-7 record.
Area 7 Senior results:
Friday, July 22
Valentine 16, Hershland 1
Security First Sheridan Co. 13, Bridgeport 5
Saturday, July 23
Bridgeport 11, Hershland 10
Security First Sheridan Co. 13, Imperial 3
Sunday, July 24
Imperial 13, Bridgeport 5
Valentine 7, Security First Sheridan Co. 5
Monday, July 25
Security First Sheridan Co. 9, Imperial 2
Tuesday, July 26
Valentine vs Security First Sheridan Co.