Monday, May 24, 2004 | 9:08 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- In a flash, Jake Johnson snared Joel Reese's liner at his shoelaces, stepped on third base and threw to second as players and fans alike took a second to process what happened.
Surely, Cimarron-Memorial did not lose the state championship in that moment and Reno did not win it that way. But the Huskies' stunning triple play against the Spartans in Friday's first meeting of the teams sent the teams in different directions that culminated in Reno's first state baseball title in 20 years.
The Huskies whipped the Spartans, 12-2, in six innings Saturday at Carson High School to win the state title that eluded them in last year's tournament. Yet the beginning of the end for Cimarron came Friday with the bases loaded and none out in the sixth inning, trailing Reno by three runs but poised to score again as it looked every bit as strong as the Huskies.
The Spartans killed a Reno lead minutes earlier in the fifth, with a pair of RBI doubles by Josh Felker and Shaun Standart giving them a 7-6 lead. Three Cimarron errors helped give back the lead, but after all, the Spartans' offense had carried the team all day.
The triple play killed that hope, though, seeming to shock and emotionally deflate the Spartans. Cimarron coach Mike Hubel disagreed that it turned the weekend, calling it a "freak play" that "happens not too often."
"I can't think for them," Hubel said of his team's emotions after the triple play. "I can teach them how to play and that's about all I can do."
Having to burn through pitching in the losers' bracket did not help the Spartans much either, but the facts are that after competing with the state's best for a day and a half before the triple play, the Spartans went onto lose that game by six runs.
They then watched a half-dozen baserunners get thrown out in a losers' bracket win later Friday over Silverado and they committed four errors and more misplays in the swirling wind in the next day's rematch against Reno.
The struggles seemed out of character for a talented Cimarron squad that played nearly flawless baseball to support Mark Willinsky's shutout Thursday against Reed after powering past Centennial to win the Sunset Region crown.
"We didn't play good baseball two days in a row," Hubel said of Friday and Saturday. "We didn't play when we needed to and it showed."
A year after Green Valley overpowered them in the state title game, the Huskies did play well at the right times. Reno coach Pete Savage called his group "kind of a team of destiny" and credited the seniors who went through the tough loss to the Gators.
"The playoff experience really shined through," Savage said. "They played with a lot of composure."
Reno senior Steve Mays, on the verge of tears following the championship win, said he and his teammates used last year's defeat as motivation.
"Ever since last year, when we saw that 11-6 score, Green Valley celebrating, we knew we had to get it this year," Mays said. "Ever since then, every night, we think about and pray for it."
Both Savage and Mays feel that the triple play showed how determination and a little luck could combine to make a team into a champion.
"Someone was watching us upstairs," Mays said. "Things don't happen like that very much. It's just unbelievable how that happened."
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