By Justin Albright Posted March 15, 2013
From March 7-9, The Buckaroo varsity baseball team opened its season in Reno, as they played a three-day tournament at Reno High School against, McQueen, Wooster, Reed, and Enochs.
The Bucks opened the season playing against the Reed Raiders and struggled at the beginning of the game. The Bucks managed to fight back and take the lead, but the Bucks fell apart and ended up losing the game 11-10. Calvin Connors led the Bucks with a team-high, four hits.
Hoping to bounce back from the tough loss to the Raiders, the Bucks played against the Enochs Eagles. The Bucks struggled to get anything going against the Eagles, as the Eagles won the game 17-5. Tyler Brumm started the game as a pitcher and ended up with a team-high of two strikeouts.
“Tyler threw a good game and we started well, but when we gave up one big inning, it was downhill from there,” said coach Ron Espinola.
The Bucks then faced off against the Wooster Colts and had a much closer game than they did against the Eagles. The Bucks still lost the game to the Colts, 6-2, but put in a good fight. The Buckaroos just couldn’t get their offense going, as they managed to only get a total of five
hits.
“Although we knew they would play small ball [bunt], we couldn’t defend it well enough,” said Espinola.
The Bucks faced off against the home team, the Reno Huskies. Once again, the Bucks couldn’t get their offense going, only getting one hit in the game. Due to the lack of offense, the Bucks got shut out, in a 14-0 loss.
In the last game of the tournament, the Bucks were just hoping to get a win as they faced off against the McQueen Lancers. The Bucks had a better offensive game, but their defense struggled, as they lost 13-11. The Bucks started the game off with a 10-0 lead, but everything fell apart.
“Again we got a good outing from our starter. We opened a big league but could not stop the bleeding once we made some mistakes. I probably should have taken Brandon [Okuma] out earlier just to stop some of their momentum,” said Espinola.
In hopes of getting the first win of the season, the Buckaroos travel to White Pine Friday, for a two-game match-up against the White Pine Bobcats.
“Overall we showed some flashes of the team we can be. If we can limit some of the mistakes and not give up big innings, we’ll be fine in the league,” said Espinola.
