Dayton baseball clinches homefield

YERINGTON - Dayton High's baseball team swept Yerington 17-1 and 19-2 on Saturday in five-inning games, moving into a tie for second place with Truckee in the Northern 3A league.

Dayton and Truckee are both 11-5, and split their season series. Truckee would be awarded second place based on its win over first-place Bishop Manogue.

The Dust Devils were dominant offensively, collecting 34 hits, 12 of which went for extra bases. Dayton got complete games from Adam Diament in the opener and Travis Wood in the nightcap. Each allowed two hits. Diament fanned four and walked one, while Wood fanned eight and walked three.

In the opener, Dayton took a 5-0 lead in its first at-bat, as Danny Hopper (2-for-3, 3 RBI) tripled home three runs, Andrew Rice (2-for-4, RBI) doubled home a run and Tom O'Brien (1-for-3, 3 RBI) drove in the third run with an infield out.

Yerington scored its only run in the first, but the Dust Devils bounced back with two more in the second to take a 7-1 lead thanks to a run-scoring double by Tim Torres (4-for-4, 3 RBI) and an error.

Dayton added seven in the fourth and three in the fifth.

Casey Skog went 3-for-4 and drove in a run, Matt Hornback went 2-for-4 and drove in a run and O'Brien tripled and drove in three runs.

In the second game, the Dust Devils scored three in the first and three in the third to take a 6-2 lead.

A single by Torres (2-for-3, 3 RBI), a double by O'Brien (4-for-5, 2 RBI) and a passed ball accounted for the first-inning runs. Matt Bowman (3-for-3, 5 RBI) doubled home a run to highlight the third inning.

Wood walked two hitters in the third, and both came around to score. He threw extremely well the other four innings.

Dayton extended its lead to 11-2 with five runs in the fourth, and then exploded for eight fifth-inning runs. Bowman hit two homers in the inning, launching a solo homer to right-center field and then a three-run blast to left-centerfield.

"I can't say enough about that young man (Bowman)," Dayton coach Craig Miller said, "He just isn't getting the notoriety (outside the area)."

Skog, Rice, Steven Owens and Wood all had two hits in the second game.