Longhorns win one at PNW Regional

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Newcastle Senior Babe Ruth Longhorns returned home last weekend from their third Pacific Northwest Regional Baseball Tournament without a bracket play berth, but they were not empty handed. For the first time in league history, Newcastle left the PNW with a win chalked up to their names. 
“It was pretty exciting to open up the tournament with a win,” exclaimed head coach Alex Schaneman. “Overall, we played some pretty good baseball. We were in it all week, we were competitive, and it was just a lot of fun.”
Not only did the Longhorns fill up the “W” column as they opened up play in Calgary, but they solidified their state champion status as their first opponent was the same Lander team they had defeated for the title.
Though the matchup was deja vu, the contest played out very differently. Where Lander had led the game until Newcastle pulled off an llth hour come-from-behind rally in the bottom of the seventh inning to pull out the win, this time the Longhorns dominated the Freemont County Lobos from the start and shut them out with a fifth inning mercy rule victory of 11-0. 
“We had a miracle comeback in Gillette, but not this time,” Schaneman chuckled. “We won pretty easily and proved that the state championship was not a fluke.”
Cam Williams did work on the mound, throwing the entire five innings of play while his team put forth a solid defensive effort to make the win an easy one. Offensively, the Longhorns were also dialed
in and had racked up a 7-0 lead heading into the bottom of the fifth.
The bases were loaded as Gavin Roady stepped up to the plate and knocked one out of the park for the Longhorns first — and only — grand slam of the season, and by doing so, brought the contest to an early close as those four runs pushed the team to the 10-run rule mark.
Day two brought up the Calgary AAA Blues for Newcastle. This time, Peyton Tystad got the call to the mound, and according to Schaneman, threw very well for five innings. Unfortunately, defense wasn’t what it had been the game before and the team made too many errors behind him.
It was 4-0 when Tystad came out of the game, relieved by Josh Stevens who finished off the remaining two innings of play. Unfortunately, the Longhorns were not able to get anything going offensively so lost the contest 7-0.
“The kid who was pitching threw very hard and struck out 15 of our batters,” Schaneman frowned. “That team would go on to play in the championship and was the best team we played all year. We played pretty solid, but we just weren’t hitting.”
Third game was against the Calgary AA Blues. Zach Purviance took the hill to open things up and Newcastle came out firing on all cylinders. It was a combination of good work at the plate by the Longhorns and a couple of errors committed by Calgary that gave the team a 3-0 lead right off the bat. The Canadian squad then rallied to tie the score at 3-3 as the fourth inning got underway. 
Newcastle answered and pushed across another run to take a 4-3 lead, but in the fifth inning the wheels fell off the bus. The Longhorns struggled defensively and Calgary found the sweet spot at bat, pushing in four or five runs.
Purviance was relieved by Sawyer Roberson in the fifth who finished things
up, however the Longhorns were only able to get one more run so took their second loss of the tournament by a score of 5-10.
Going into the contest, Schaneman and his crew were under the impression they had to win to stay in the mix for bracket play. However, after the loss they were still mathematically in at that point. Unfortunately, the RBI Dirtbags did not do their job to beat Calgary AA which they would have had to do in order for Newcastle to still be in the running.
The final day of competition for Newcastle had them matched against said RBI Dirtbags. At this point, the team knew that this would be their last game of the year and that they were out of bracket contention. 
“We didn’t play our best game with that knowledge,” Schaneman admitted. “Peyton started the game as pitcher, but defense was severely lacking behind him. We made four of our five errors in the
first inning alone, so it was pretty bad.”
Errors cost Newcastle who went on to drop this final game 15-4, succumbing to the mercy rule in the fifth inning.
As the season came to a close the Longhorns say goodbye to Roberson, Roady, Stevens, Cade Ostenson, Nolan Turner, Isaac Prell and Dylan Talley as they age out after this year. While the loss of these veterans will be felt by the team, there are nine coming up from the Junior Babe Stampede team who is playing in the PNW Regional tournament in Washington this week.
The Longhorns will also be without Schaneman as the first year head coach moves on to Gillette.
“It was amazing to have the opportunity to be the head coach for the season, and I couldn’t have asked for a better ending,” Schaneman smiled. “We went to Regionals and won a game, and it was how I dreamt it would go.
I’m very excited for the kids, and happy that they were able to get that win under their belt, because they worked hard for it.”