Carson baseball squad falls from unbeaten ranks, stays in the lead

RENO " It was a good news and bad news day for Carson High's baseball team Saturday afternoon.

The bad news was that Carson suffered it first loss of the season, dropping a 16-5 5-inning decision to Bishop Manogue after topping the Miners 14-3 in the first game.

The good news is that Carson maintained a share of first place at 5-1. The Senators are 9-1 overall.

"Our goal was to win both games," Carson coach Cody Farnworth said. "We're happy with two out of three. That's our objective to win every series. We'd like to sweep, but that's not always going to happen."

Carson hosts McQueen on Tuesday and then hosts Reed in a three-game series. All three are nonleague games.

In the opener, Carson got three hits apiece from Kyle Stone, Paul Cagle III and Matt Rutledge, and two each from Dustin Buttner and Brett Valley en route to the Senators' second straight win over the Miners. The game was stopped after six innings because of the 10-run mercy rule.

Carson's offense got untracked early, coring four in the first and adding six more in the second en route to a 10-0 lead.

With one out, Tommy Preston and Stone singled. Cagle followed with a deep homer to left off Ben Hewson, who didn't get out of the first inning.

"I was sitting on a first-pitch curveball and he left it up," Cagle said.

A walk to Cody Barr and singles by Buttner, Rutledge and Brooks Hutchins manufactured another run.

In the second, the Senators used five hits, a hit batsman, and three Manogue errors to score six more runs.

That was more than enough for lefty David Charles, who allowed one in the third and two in the fifth to pick up his second Sierra League win of the season. Charles fanned four batters, and at least early on, was able to keep the Miners off balance.

"I was nervous at first after Rut's great game on Thursday," Charles said, referring to teammate Matt Rutledge. "I hit my locations and I knew my teammates would back me up. The change was working in the pen and we decided to keep going with it."

"He (Charles) threw a good game," Cagle said. "He may have gotten a little tired toward the end."

Carson made it an 11-1 game in the fourth and Manogue avoided a five-inning game with two runs in the fifth.

Carson completed the scoring in the sixth when Buttner hit a three-run homer to deep left, his second homer and 14th RBI in the last four games.

In the nightcap, Manogue scored five in the second, four of them off Tyler Smith, who lasted 1.1 innings. Smith has yielded nine earned runs in two Sierra League starts, and that's not a good sign.

Manogue led 6-5 entering the bottom of the fourth and exploded for 10 runs off Tyler Hutchins and David Perce. The biggest hits were Tim Lewis' two-run homer and Evan Miller's double.

Valley went 3-for-3 and drove in two runs in a losing effort.

Cagle said he wasn't worried about the lasting effects of the team's first loss.

"We'll bounce back," Cagle said. "We have to get a little better. We need our third starter and relievers to get a little better."

- Contact Darrell Moody at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com, or by calling 775-881-1281