Dayton High's Matt Bowman showed why he's one of the best players in Northern Nevada at any level while the Dust Devil baseball team settled for a split in a key doubleheader on Saturday against Truckee at home.
Dayton, Truckee and Fernley are currently in a three-way battle for second. Dayton let a golden chance to move ahead of Truckee in that battle as it lost a 7-2 lead in the sixth inning. Truckee scored seven runs in the sixth on its way to a 9-7 win.
The Dust Devils almost also lost a 5-0 lead in the sixth in the nightcap. Truckee scored four runs in the the sixth, but Bowman came in to shut the door as Dayton salvaged the split with a 5-4 win. Dayton and Truckee are now both 5-2 in the Northern 3A.
Bowman went 6-for-6 with with seven RBI along with picking up the save in the doubleheader. Bowman also went 4-for-4 and hit two home runs with five RBI in the opener off of highly touted J.R. Murphy.
"Matt's a pure ball player," Dayton coach Craig Miller said. "He just plays shortstop with the best of them. He hits the ball extremely well. He did a tremendous job coming in and pitching as well."
Dayton's other league loss came against North Tahoe when the Dust Devils held an 8-2 lead, but lost it in, what else, the sixth.
"We aren't going to have sixth innings," said Miller jokingly. "We're just going to play two fives. If we get out of those, we're undefeated in league. We just can't have letdowns like that."
In the opener, Bowman hit a two-run homer in the first. Then in the third with runners and second and third and first base open, Truckee had a conference on the mound, but still decided to pitch to Bowman. On the first pitch, Bowman hit a Murphy slider 400 feet for a three-run homer to give Dayton (8-2) a 5-1 lead.
"We really came out strong," Miller said. "We hit the ball well right away off of Murphy."
The Dust Devils had a 7-2 lead behind Adam Diament's pitching before Truckee used two errors, two walks and two hit batsmen for its winning rally. Diament and Casey Skog each had two hits for the Dust Devils.
Dayton led 5-0 in the nightcap behind the pitching of freshman Travis Wood, who carried a no-hitter into the sixth. But Truckee scored four runs before Bowman got the last six outs for the save.
Bowman went 2-for-2, Skog had two hits, Tim Torres and Wood each had a hit and an RBI and Zane Walker added a hit for Dayton.