Parker – Chaparral baseball coach Steve Eaton threw his ace pitcher in front of a speeding locomotive on Tuesday, and he said he would do it again without a second thought.
Senior hurler David McKnight stepped onto the tracks and pitched a complete game with 10 strikeouts in a 5-2 win over visiting Arapahoe, a team that had scored 47 runs in its past three games. McKnight also helped tie the Class 5A Continental League into a knot with the end of the regular season looming.
“Dave has been lights-out all year. We want him on the bump in situations like this,” Eaton said.
Chaparral (12-4 overall, 8-2 Continental) joined Mountain Vista atop the league standings with Arapahoe (11-5, 6-2) a game behind. If all three schools win their final league games, there will be a three-way tie for the Continental title.
Arapahoe has three games left against teams with a combined 9-17 league record, while Chaparral and Mountain Vista have one league game apiece remaining.
“That’s one of the good things about baseball – have a bad day like this and you can go back out and play another one the next day,” Arapahoe coach Luke Muller said.
The Warriors take on Heritage today, and the Eagles want a victory to stay in the packed race for one of the Continental League’s six district seeds.
On the diamond, Arapahoe got on the scoreboard first with a two-run second inning thanks in part to an RBI double by Payton Turner. But that would be the only extra-base hit allowed by McKnight, who retired 12 consecutive batters from the end of the third inning to the beginning of the seventh.
“I hit my spots,” said Mc- Knight, whose arsenal includes a fastball, curveball and changeup, “but I had great backup from my defense. … We looked at this game like the start of the playoffs right here.”
The Wolverines went into the bottom of the second inning down 2-0 and responded with three straight singles to load the bases. Designated hitter Mike Frank did not waste his opportunity and unleashed a stinging, two-RBI double up the middle to score Mike Smigiel and Tony Peterson. Three batters later, Ryan Serena put down a perfect sacrifice bunt to score Jim Mathews and give Chaparral a lead it would not lose.
“We had to play big. They put up two (runs), so we had to put some up,” Smigiel said.
Chaparral gave itself some breathing room in the fifth when Greg Crowe drove in courtesy runner Joey Widhalm with a ground-rule double. Smigiel then brought in Crowe with a single to right field.
Arapahoe 020 000 0 – 2 5 0
Chaparral 030 020 x – 5 8 1
Arapahoe – Hemphill ss 4-0-1-0, Brown 2b 4-0-1-0, Case 3b 4-0-0-0, Hardcastle c 1-1-0-0, Turner 1b 3-1-1-1, Scott p 2-0-0-0, Runberg dh 3-0-0-0, Stanton cf 3-0-1-0, Soehngen lf 2-0-1-0. Totals 26-2-5-1.
Chaparral – Serena ss 4-0-0-1, McKnight p 3-0-1-0, Crowe rf 4-1-1-1, Smigiel 3b 3-1-2-1, Peterson 2b 2-1-1-0, Mathews lf 3-1-1-0, Frank dh 2-0-2-2, Catts 1b 3-0-0-0, Gaudet cf 2-0-0-0, Widhalm cr 0-1-0-0. Totals 26-5-8-5.
E – Smigiel. LOB – Arapahoe 7; Chaparral 7. 2B – Turner; McKnight, Crowe, Frank. SAC – Serena.
Batteries – Scott and Hardcastle; McKnight and Roybal. W – McKnight (3-2). L – Scott (5-1). WP – McKnight 2. HBP – Soehngen, A, by McKnight; Peterson, C, by Scott; McKnight, C, by Scott. Time – 1:32.
