On Friday, the Nevada Union Miners varsity baseball team (11-7-1, 2-3-1) hosted the West Park Panthers (10-7-1, 3-2-1) in a Foothill Valley League (FVL) battle; the game ended in a 4-4 tie due to lack of sunlight.
”Crazy day today,” Nevada Union Miners varsity head coach Ted White said. “That was a battle between two evenly matched teams. Our guys really competed through lots of adversity. I am really proud of how we kept fighting. We had opportunities to win the game, but it just didn’t work out.”
West Park scored first with an Andrew Curtain RBI single in the first inning. The Miners came back in the bottom of the second when senior Chase Nye hit a single to right field, and sophomore Jack Bryan scored.
Nevada Union took a 2-1 lead in the fourth inning when Bryan scored on an error. However, the Panthers bounced back in the next inning to tie the game up at two.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, with the bases loaded, Miners senior Alex Cope came up and hit into fielder’s choice, and senior catcher Lucas Mackey came in to score to give Nevada Union a 3-2 lead.
The Panthers scored two runs in the sixth inning, one on a balk call on Miners pitcher Mason Muellenhoff and the other on an RBI single from Ayden Deome. West Park took a 4-3 lead into the seventh inning.
In the bottom of the seventh, Miners centerfielder Bryan led off with a single and stole second base. Then, Cope approached the plate and laid down a beautiful sacrifice bunt to move Bryan to third base.
After Cope’s bunt, sophomore Nate Hundemer struck out, giving the Miners two outs. That’s when senior Steele Witchek came to the plate and hit what looked to be a routine ground ball to the shortstop that was instead bobbled, allowing Witchek to reach first base and Bryan to score to tie the game at four, taking the game into extra innings.
Both teams got a chance to hit in the eighth inning, no runs were scored, and the game was called due to insufficient light.
The Miners had six hits in the game; Bryan had one hit but scored three runs. Nye and Cope both had one RBI for Nevada Union.
Muellenhoff was on the bump for the Miners and pitched 5.2 innings and gave up 12 hits, four runs, and struck out two West Park batters.
Junior Brady Mallette pitched 1.2 innings, while freshman Ty Malak pitched .2 innings.
The Miners are scheduled to play the Placer Hillmen (8-7, 2-4) Today at 4:30 p.m. at Nevada Union High School, 11761 Ridge Rd, Grass Valley, CA, 95945.
To contact Sports Reporter LaMarr Fields email lfields@theunion.com.
