BY DARRELL MOODY
dmoody@nevadaappeal.com
RENO " Despite a rocky finsih to the season which saw the Carson Senators lose five of their last six games, the season was an unqualified success.
Carson saw its season end a little earlier than it had hoped when Bishop Manogue scored six runs in the first two innings en route to a 10-6 victory in an elimination game at the NIAA 4A Baseball Championships at Zunini Field Thursday afternoon.
Carson finished the season with 24 wins under first-year coach Cody Farnworth. The Senators led the Sierra League until the last weekend of the regular season.
"I think it was a fantastic season in terms of what we achieved," Farnworth said. "As a first-year coach, I couldn't ask for a better group of kids. I'll always remember them for what they did for this program.
"They did everything we asked; bought into what we were doing. We didn't achieve our goal of winning the division and winning zone, but it was a good season."
Carson did make it interesting on Thursday with a late rally, but the cards were stacked against them going any further in the tournament after they used their three regular-season starters " Matt Rutledge, David Charles, and Tyler Hutchins " in the first two days of the tournament.
Cody Barr, who saw limited action during the regular season because of the effectiveness of the starters, proved to be no mystery to Manogue hitters. Barr yielded eight runs in 4-plus innings before giving way to Tyler Hutchins, who pitched briefly against Reno on Wednesday.
Manogue's Pat Riggs opened the game with a drive that nearly took Barr's head off. Ben Hewson walked, advancing Riggs to second. After Evan Miller struck out, Tim Lewis followed with a hard single to left, which got under the glove of left fielder Brett Valley to score two runs. Lewis reached third on the play and scored on John O'Gara's infield out.
Carson fought back with a run in the first off Sean DeWeese as Rutledge doubled to deep right-centerfield and scored on Kyle Stone's infield out.
The Miners scored three more in the second on four more hits.
Kevin Berry singled and moved to third on D.J. Seaton's double over Valley's head in left. Both runners scored on a single by Riggs. After Riggs stole second, Hewson followed iwth a run-scoring single. Evan Miller followed with a liner to left, and Tommy Preston made a tremendous sliding catch for the second out. Lewis flied out to end the inning.
"His (Preston) defense has been awesome all year," Farnworth said.
Carson got a run back in the bottom of the second when Paul Cagle was hit by a pitch and scored on Brooks Hutchins' two-out double to right-centerfield. Tyler Smith groiunded out to end the inning.
Carson sliced the deficit to 6-3 in the fourth when Barr singled,moved to second on Cagle's infield out, to third on Dustin Buttner's deep fly ball and scored on Preston's single. Preston, Brooks Hutchins and Rutledge each finished with two hits.
Barr ran into more problems in the fifth.
Hewson walked and Miller followed with a two-run homer to make it 8-3. Lewis followed with a single, and Barr came out of the game.
Preston saved Carson again when he tracked down a ball in the right-centerfield alley on the warning track. Barr didn't make excuses. He said he had problems with location. That's not surprising considering he only got a few chances to pitch in critical situations.
The Miners made it 10-3 with single runs in the sixth and seventh off Tyler Hutchins.
Carson came back with a vengeance in the seventh,
With one out, Preston tripled to right and scored on a single by Brooks Hutchins. Tyler Smith followd with hard shot to left right at Manogue's left fielder for the second out. Hutchins moved to second on a wild pitch. Valley singled, Rutledge doubled and Stone singled to make it 10-6. with runners at the corners, Barr hammered a line drive right at the Manogue third baseman to end the game.
"We swung the bat well," Farnworth said. "We had a lot of balls (right at them). That's the game of baseball."