Team wins one of three

The Powell Little League minors division all-star team went 1-2 last week in district tournament play to see its season come to a close in the consolation championship game. The team dropped games to Kemmerer and Bridger Valley while posting a victory over Green River.

The tournament was hosted by Cody.

In the opener against Kemmerer, Powell fell behind early as its first three batters went down in order to start the game. Kemmerer delivered a single, double and triple in the bottom half of the frame to take a 2-0 lead.

Kemmerer added a run to go ahead 3-0 before Powell got on the scoreboard in the third inning. Garrett Stutzman opened the inning with a single and worked his way to third base before Dylan Cordes’ RBI single advanced him the final few feet. Zane Cordes followed with a single and Charlie Whitlock’s infield grounder drove in Powell’s second run.

Powell knotted the game in the fourth. Cameron Wentz led off with a double and came home on Nate Brown’s RBI single to tie the game. Meanwhile, Dacen Phister was in a groove on the mound, sitting Kemmerer down in order in the third inning and facing just four batters in the fourth.

Whitlock and Colin Queen got aboard for Powell in the fifth. Bo Dearcorn’s single gave Powell its first lead, scoring Whitlock. Queen made it 5-3 in Powell’s favor as he came home on Trevor Groves’ sacrifice RBI. All that was needed for the win was for Powell to get the final three outs in the bottom of the fifth.

As Whitlock came on in relief, the inning started according to plan with an infield grounder for the first out. Kemmerer then managed back-to-back base hits and added a full-count walk to load the bags. An RBI single trimmed Powell’s lead to the slimmest of margins and brought Zane Cordes to the hill to try for a save.

Cordes got the first batter he faced out. He worked a two-strike count to the next batter, only to see his next pitch driven into right field, enabling the tying and winning runs to cross home in a 6-5 Powell loss.

Against Green River, Powell jumped to a 2-0 lead as Phister produced a first-inning RBI and Zane Cordes successfully stole home. Colin Queen worked a 1-2-3 bottom of the inning and Powell never looked back.

Jesse Brown’s second-inning double plated two more runs. Powell added two more steals of home to make the gap 6-0. In the third, Brown produced another double that chased home two more runners. Tanner Moore added an RBI single, extending Powell’s lead to 9-0.

Queen lost both his no-hitter and his shutout in the third as Green River managed three base hits, scoring a run in the frame. That mattered little in the grand scheme, however. Brown’s two-out single in the fourth resulted in his fifth and sixth RBIs of the game. Moore had another RBI and Powell added two more runs to take a 14-1 lead. Green River went down quietly in the bottom of the fourth for a run-rule victory that advanced the team to the consolation championship.

That consolation game got off to a bad start for Powell, which stranded the bases loaded in the top of the first as Bridger Valley produced back-to-back strikeouts to wiggle out of the jam. Offensively, the southwestern Wyoming team opened with three singles and scored their first four batters before Powell registered an out.

In all, 11 batters went to the plate in the first inning for Bridger Valley as Powell found itself in a deep hole, 6-0. Unfortunately, that trend continued as Bridger Valley sent 11 more to the plate in the second, taking an 11-1 lead on Powell.

The local side’s only run came on Queen’s RBI single, which drove home Whitlock.

Powell struck again in the third as Brown led off with a double. Dearcorn followed with another double to trade places with Brown and register an RBI. Phister added an RBI single and eventually came home to score on a sacrifice off Groves’ bat. That trimmed the gap to 11-4, but Bridger Valley added a run in the bottom of the third and two more in the bottom of the fourth to end the game and Powell’s season on the 10-run rule.