Cathleen Allison/Nevada Appeal
The Western Nevada baseball team is known for its big bats, but Friday the Wildcats also showed it can play small and used their littlest teammate to do so.
Mike Styles, WNC's 5-foot-7 second baseman, slapped an RBI-single in the 10th inning to give the Wildcats a 3-2 win over Southern Nevada in what was looking like a baseball marathon at John L. Harvey Field.
"I hada pretty good feeling the fastball was coming because they tried to beat me with a fastball (before)," Styles said. "So I was expecting either curve ball in the dirt or fastball and the fastball came so I hit it right back up the middle."
The 16th-ranked Wildcats (23-3 SWAC, 29-9) also grabbed a 10-4 victory in the first game of the day and stretched their lead to four games over the Coyotes (19-7, 27-17) in the Scenic West Athletic Conference. The wins also extended WNC's winning streak to 14.
The two teams will meet again at noon today in another doubleheader.
"We've got to come out with the same mentality (today for) both games," Styles said. "We can't take it lightly after what happened today. We need to grind just like we did today...
"Especially over them, winning the first two (games) swings a lot of momentum our way."
After the Wildcats used two home runs in the first game to take an easy win, the second game turned into pitching duel between CSN's Egan Smith and WNC's Kramer Champlin, who came to relieve Josh Moody in his first start since Feb. 2. Smith had the flasher numbers, eight strikeouts in seven innings and retired 17 straight batters at one point, but it was Champlin who pitched the Wildcats out of the tough situations.
The freshman gave up a lead-off single in the top of the ninth to Joe Glavin, who moved to second after a passed ball two batters later. Daniel Higa advanced Glavin to third with groundout. Champlin got Robbie Garvey, who leads the country in stolen bases with 37, to hit a grounder to second, but pushed Styles to come up with perfect defensive play on charging throw to first to beat the speedster by less than half a step.
In the 10th, Scott Dysinger reached on a Dan Zylstra error, but Champlin got the next batter to ground into a fielder's choice and Marvin Campbell into a double play that he initiated to end the inning.
"It was important for him to keep his head straight," Styles said of Champlin. "He was there for so many extra innings on the mound and to stay relaxed and keep going the way he was."
The game was going to wind down one or another in the bottom of the 10th with the sun setting quickly and no stadium lights to keep the marathon going. Then things started to turn toward the Wildcats' favor. Andrew Garcia hit a sharp grounder to the first base side, Campbell slide toward second to make the stop, but had to make tough throw to get Garcia. The throw bounced off pitcher Kenny McDowell's glove and Garcia reached safely. McDowell came in for Smith in the eighth.
Next, Maupin, who was frustrated in the seventh inning when he hit a line shot to short that could have ended the game, but stranded two runners, took a 3-2 pitch back up the middle that hit McDowell squarely in the left foot. The shot spun McDowell around and forced him to relocate the ball. By the time he did Maupin was safe at first and Jay Skilton, who came pitch ran for Garcia, to second.
Styles followed Maupin's lead and on a 1-2 count fired the ball up the middle to center field with Skilton chugging all the way. The throw from Garvey was to the right of the plate and Skilton slide legs-first on the outside part of the plate before Ryan Scott could apply the tag.
"That's what good baseball teams do is get the ball in play with two strikes and that's why Southern Nevada is so tough," WNC coach D.J. Whittemore said. "Those guys are hard to strike out."