Tribune photo by John Byrne - Reed High’s senior center fielder, Chris Hawthorne, tracks down a ball in the outfield during the Raiders’ 9-2 HDL home win.
For the nine seniors who will graduate this year, the latter is probably the bigger factor and helped the team put together a six-run rally in their final at-bat to nail down a 9-2 home-field win over North Valleys.
“We’re more relaxed knowing there’s no postseason, compared to yesterday,” Reed coach Nick Royle said, referring to Wednesday’s blowout loss to the Panthers. “The challenge in our last home game is we want to defend our home field and get a win.”
Thursday’s win came courtesy of pitcher Casey Yocom, who is among the list of graduating seniors. Yocom will be going on to play baseball at Western Nevada College, which will make the end of the season a little easier for him.
“I don’t know if it will be that hard for me since I have something to look forward to,” Yocom said. “But I feel for the other kids who have to hang up their cleats.”
While still wearing their cleats on Thursday, the Raiders had to come back on the Panthers, who scored first in the third inning on a groundball by Jason Rasmusson after a double by Tyler Molder put runners on second and third with no out. The Raiders escaped further damage and came back with two runs in the bottom of the frame.
Right fielder Sam Petrie walked to start the inning and Duran DiQuarto singled. Fabian Reza then bunted but with no one covering first, he reached base to load the sacks. Sam DiCianno’s grounder to third scored a run and another run scored on a wild pitch for a 2-1 Reed lead.
The Raiders added a run in the fourth and North Valleys got one back in the sixth. When Reed came up in the bottom of the sixth, center fielder Chris Hawthorne led off with a single and then Yocom was hit with a pitch. The Panthers then brought in first baseman Shane Moline to pitch, and he retired one batter before walking Petrie and DiQuarto.
After allowing a run to score on a wild pitch, first baseman Josh Mathis was then brought in to pitch. He didn’t fare much better, walking Reza to force in a run and giving up a two-run double to Derek Garcia and a two-run single to Dakota Bailey for the final 9-2 score.
“It was nice to get a bigger lead so everybody could relax a little,” Royle said.
The Raiders used a lot of non-starters in Thursday’s game, but coach Royle said he wasn’t necessarily doing any scouting for the 2010 season.
“Yes, you have to look at the younger guys but if you do it too much you take away from the end of the year,” Royle said. “I don’t want to be unfair to the seniors. We’ll worry about next year on Saturday.”
The Raiders close out the series with North Valleys and the 2009 season at NVHS Friday at 3:30 p.m.
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