Powell suffers home doubleheader sweep on Sunday

After a strong showing at the Roy Peck Memorial Tournament on Thursday-Saturday in Riverton, the Powell Pioneers were unable to sustain their positive momentum in a doubleheader sweep at the hands of a tough Billings Halos team on Sunday in Powell.

Powell went 3-1 in Riverton to take third, but dropped to 7-11 on the season after 15-5 and 12-0 losses to Billings at Ed Lynn Memorial Field.

Powell 4, Riverton 1 (Riverton Tournament)

In its first action of the tourney, 16-year-old Ty Dearcorn fueled the Pioneers on the mound and at the plate. The youngster pitched a five-hit complete game while also providing a two-run double that broke a 1-1 tie in the fourth and gave Powell the lead for good.

On the mound, Dearcorn allowed one earned run to go with four strikeouts. He walked five. It was Dearcorn’s strongest start of the season, giving head coach Jason Borders optimism about the strength of his pitching staff moving forward.

“That’s just going to make us better,” Borders said. If we can count on him as being our 4-5 guy (in the rotation), that’s huge for us to have another guy we can count on and save some of our other arms.”

Cory Heny had two hits, including a double and an RBI. Lead-off hitter Toby Stowe also had two hits.

Powell 9, Rawlins 7 (Riverton Tournament)

Powell moved into the semifinal game of the tournament with a nail-biter victory over Rawlins. The Pioneers built a 9-2 lead after 5 1/2 innings, but had to hold on after surrendering a run in the bottom of the sixth and four in the seventh.

Powell finished with eight hits from seven different players, led by two from Ezra Andreasen, who had an RBI double.

Kaden Moore had two RBIs, and Dearcorn and Stowe also plated a run apiece.

Four pitchers saw action for Powell, with Heny picking up the win after four innings of two-run ball. He allowed two hits, two walks and struck out four.

Riverton 9, Powell 8 (8 inn., Riverton Tournament)

In their rematch with Riverton, Powell rallied for a lead, rallied again for a second lead and went into extra innings before finally succumbing to a rally from the hosts.

Down 7-6 in the seventh inning, Powell tied it on a Heny triple that scored Carson Asher. In extras, under the tournament’s sudden-death rules, the Pioneers who made the three outs in the seventh frame were put on base in the eighth with one out. Andreasen pushed Powell ahead with a ground out, and Heny came on to close in the bottom half under the same circumstances.

Heny allowed a game-tying single before walking the next batter with the bases loaded to give the Raiders the walk-off victory.

Sanders had two of Powell’s four hits, including a solo home run in the second inning and a grand slam in the third. The homers were his first two of the season.

“It was bound to happen. He’s too good a hitter not to,” Borders said of Sanders’ homers. “Throughout his career he’s been a consistently productive hitter. He hadn’t been swinging the bat that well, but something just clicked last week.”

Sanders received the Big Stick Award for his power surge. Heny and Matt Brown also had an RBI for Powell.

Powell 11, Douglas 7 (Riverton Tournament, third place)

The Pioneers endured another slugfest to finish third in the tournament. Powell scored two runs in the first

inning, two more in the third, a run in the fourth and four more in the fifth to take the lead for good.

Powell smacked 13 hits, including three from Asher (two RBIs), and two each from Stowe, Heny and Sanders. Stowe and Sanders also drove in two runs each while Heny, Andreasen and Kaden Moore knocked in one apiece. Six of Powell’s hit were doubles.

“We broke out, we started hitting the ball again. When we get two hits, it’s hard to generate any offense,” Borders said. “When we hit the ball it makes the game so much better for us.”

On the mound, Moore went all seven frames for the Pioneers. He allowed seven runs (six earned) on six hits with four walks and nine strikeouts.

Borders was happy to face off against some in-state competition again after having a rough go of things against Montana squads.

“It was just nice to play against teams we’d be normally playing,” Borders said. “The teams we’ll see at state and districts were all (at the tournament). We were back to playing league games, which was nice, because we got a chance to see where we stand.”

Billings Halos 15, Powell 5

After playing their usual competition, Powell had another date with a tough Billings team, and were unable to hang around for long.

With Brown on the mound, Billings plated one run in each of the first four innings, but the Pioneers battled back to make it 4-3 before Brown exited. Newcomer and catcher Trey Ouellette reached on an error to second with the bases loaded to bring home Sanders and Tyler Feller to make it 4-3.

Billings broke the game open in the fifth, however, scoring four runs off Feller, who came in to relieve Brown. Powell rallied again in the fifth, scoring two runs on a Sanders single to right, but the Halos poured on five more runs in the sixth to seal the win.

Powell managed just three hits.

Billings Halos 12, Powell 0 (5 inn.)

Youngster Zavier Wantulok started for Powell in its last game of the weekend, and failed to get past the first inning after Billings posted seven runs to open the contest.

Billings built a 10-run lead after three innings as Halos starter Sean Spillum scattered eight Pioneers hits over his five frames. He walked none and struck out seven.

Powell did some damage at the plate, collecting eight hits, but was unable to push anyone across the plate. Asher paced the Pioneers with three hits and Stowe had two.

Borders said that while Sunday’s games were tough, he knows facing tough pitching will only help his team improve at the plate.

“For our kids to go up against that kind of pitching, that was a good thing. If you can hit that, it’s just going to get easier,” he said. “If we learn from it and grow from it, it’s just going to make us better down the road.”

Powell was also without several players who were gone due to personal obligations, and because of the Riverton tournament, most of the team’s starting pitchers were unavailable.

“I think our biggest thing in these games now, we realize that we’re not playing with all our guys. And we were basically out of arms,” Borders said. “We just didn’t have anybody to go to. We had some kids step up, and we just had to get through it.”

What’s next....

Because of a shortage of available players, the Pioneers will skip their trip to Douglas today (Tuesday), and will instead get ready for a doubleheader against Cody’s B-team at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Wednesday in Powell.