AURORA | With not much at stake, the seniors on Grandview’s baseball team got their last chance to play on their home diamond Saturday.
Coach Dean Adams employed a largely senior starting lineup for the Wolves’ regular season finale against Mullen in a game that had little to no impact on their upcoming appearance in the Class 5A district tournament.
Even with something of an alternate lineup and held without a base hit until its last at-bat, Grandview nearly rallied to beat Mullen before falling 6-5 in Centennial League play. The Wolves dropped to 10-9 overall and finished third in the conference with a 9-5 mark.
Grandview awaits its seeding in the 32-team district playoffs, which come out Wednesday.
The final game didn’t much reflect how the Wolves have been playing of late, as Adams’ team had won seven of its last eight games with a blend of strong hitting, pitching and defense.
On Saturday, the Wolves had four players thrown out on the basepaths and stranded eight other runners and bouts of wildness came back to hurt the pitching staff.
Grandview had the makings of a big rally in the first inning, as Brooks Adams and Tanner Thomas drew back-to-back walks off Mullen starter Alex Watson, who then hit Eric Mingus with a pitch to load the bases. During cleanup hitter Sean Kennedy’s at-bat, Adams got caught off third base on a ball in the dirt and was thrown out prior to Kennedy and Vince Armstrong striking out.
Runners caught stealing blunted rallies in both the third and four innings before the Wolves scratched out two runs in the bottom of the fifth to tie the score. Mingus walked with the bases loaded to force in a run and another run came home on a Kennedy groundout.
The Mustangs (8-11, 8-6) tacked on two runs apiece in the sixth and seventh innings before watching the Wolves plate three in the bottom of the seventh.
Armstrong singled in two runs — on Grandview’s first base hit of the game — and Tyler O’Dorisio drove in another with a base hit in the Wolves’ last gasp rally, but Jason Burger’s drive to medium left field ended the ballgame with the tying run at third and the winning run at second.
Note: Adams said the Wolves will scrimmage Ponderosa on Tuesday in preparation for the district playoffs.
Courtney Oakes is Sports Editor of the Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. Facebook: Aurora Prep Sentinel
MULLEN 6, GRANDVIEW 5
Score by innings (r-h-e):
Mullen 110 002 2 — 6 6 4
Grandview 000 020 3 — 5 2 1
MULLEN (ab-r-h-rbi)
A.J. Duran ss 3-1-0-0, Robert Mitchell c 4-1-1-0, Landon Urban cf 3-1-0-0, Dominic Duran 1b 4-0-3-1, Jonathan Miranda cr 0-1-0-0, Ty Kelly lf-p 2-1-0-0, Jim Dobrash rf 2-0-0-1, Marshall Reyburn dh 3-0-1-2, Rocco Porreco 3b 3-1-1-0, Michael Machado 2b 3-0-0-0. Totals 27-6-6-4. Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so): Alex Watson (W, 5-0-2-0-7-4), Ty Kelly (Save, 2-2-3-0-2-3)
GRANDVIEW (ab-r-h-rbi)
Brooks Adams 2b 2-1-0-0, Tanner Thomas DH 1-1-0-0, Eric Mingus ss 1-1-0-0, Sean Kennedy p-1b 3-1-0-0, Keifer Glau cr 0-0-0-0, Vince Armstrong rf 3-0-1-2, Tyler O’Dorisio 3b 4-0-1-1, Jason Burger lf 4-0-0-0, Zach Starcher c 2-0-0-0, Ben Marshall cr 0-1-0-0, Brendan Hays cf 3-0-0-0. Totals 23-2-5-3. Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so): Sean Kennedy (5 1/3-4-4-4-4-8), Bailey Smith (L, 1 2/3-2-2-2-0-3).
2B — Mullen: Robert Mitchell, Rocco Porreco, Marshall Reyburn.
