Day 2 of the Area 7 District Junior Legion baseball tournament in McCook saw the top seed, Sidney, fall to the Spartans from Alliance 4 to 2. In a contest played on Saturday, July 12, Alliance tallied 2 seventh inning runs to advance in the winner’s bracket. The Peltz Co got 5 plus strong innings from starter Espen Lanik who ended with 9 strikeouts. Relief pitcher Braeden Clarke finished the game for Alliance. Lanik recorded 2 of the 4 Spartan hits.
Alliance was the visiting team in the scorebook and got a Lanik hit in the top of the first but the Spartan pitcher was stranded on the base paths. Sidney went 1-2-3 in their first attempt and the contest went to the second tied at 0. The Peltz Co broke thru in the second with one run while not recording a hit. Jaxson Martinez began the Alliance rally with a walk and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Clarke. A grounder hit by Alliance’s EJ Garcia was mishandled by Sidney and it allowed Martinez to score the game’s first run. Post 17 from Sidney was denied in the second thanks to 2 more Ks by Lanik. No teams scored in the third. Alliance did get a single by Nason Thompson but he was left on the bases. The Spartan defense was especially sharp in the third as catcher Mikey Johnson threw out a Sidney runner attempting to steal. Lanik had 2 strikeouts in the inning.
The momentum went to Sidney in the fourth. Alliance went scoreless while Post 17 tallied 2 runs. Sidney used 2 hits, an error by the Spartans, and a walk to surge ahead 2 to 1. Three more strikeouts were recorded in the frame by Lanik. In the fifth, Lanik reached on an error by Sidney and took second on a stolen base. Another miscue by Post 17 got Lanik to third and eventually scored on a wild pitch. Pitching then took over in the bottom of the fifth and in the sixth as neither team could score. Tied at 2, the game went to the seventh and final inning. A lead off hit by Clarke gave the Peltz Co hope in their last at bat. Lanik was next and his single put 2 runners on the bases.
The sack were loaded on a walk by Spartan Tony Escamilla. Thompson then gave Alliance the lead when we reached after getting hit by a Sidney pitch. The scoring came to a close after Alliance’s Creighton Fritzler was hit by another Post 17 pitch which scored run #4. With Clarke pitching in the seventh, Sidney would go quickly with the Spartan relief pitcher striking out the final Sidney batter. Final Alliance 4 Sidney 2.
ALL 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 4
SID 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 2
4 hits for Alliance: 2 Lanik, one each Thompson, Clarke.