Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Southwest teams still dominate in summer

Three months ago, the Southwest Division ruled high school baseball in Nevada.

At one point in April, Bishop Gorman, Durango and eventual state champion Sierra Vista were all ranked in the top five in the state. That dominance has continued into summer ball. Sierra Vista, Durango, Bishop Gorman, Bonanza and Spring Valley were in the top eight in the American Legion regular-season standings.

And heading into tonight's Gold League semifinals of the state American Legion tournament at UNLV's Wilson Stadium, two Southwest teams look to play their way into the regional tournament while another is already locked in.

Sierra Vista rattled off a 23-4 record in the Legion season, earning an automatic bid into next week's Western Regional, to be held at Lied Field at CCSN.

Durango and Bishop Gorman both won handily in elimination games Wednesday for tonight's games at UNLV.

Bishop Gorman, which finished the Legion season 17-11, defeated Sierra Vista 11-3 on Wednesday afternoon, led by a 3-for-4, four-RBI, two-double outing by shortstop Taylor Cole. Gorman second baseman Scott Dysinger finished 4-for-5 and left fielder Corey Roveri went 1-for-3 with three runs, three RBIs and three walks.

Gorman, playing as the Southern Nevada Titans, has a lineup even younger than that of its youthful high school season team.

"We've got some young kids - two eighth graders started for us. We're younger and sometimes youth can bring a lot of excitement and energy," Titans coach Chris Sheff said. "There's been times when you don't want to put claim to your own team and games where they played well like tonight and take care of business."

Sierra Vista struggled with pitching, the hallmark of its high school season's championship run. J.J. Harvey and Matt Klein combined to pitch five innings, giving up 10 hits and 10 earned runs while walking eight Gorman batters.

The Lions have struggled lately, but coach Levi Gill thinks his team can regroup before facing the Utah champion next Thursday.

"It isn't the way we want to be going into regionals, obviously, " Gill said. "We're going to work on the fundamentals. We need to play some more inspired baseball. It hasn't been there the last couple weeks."

Bishop Gorman advances to face Silverado at 8 p.m. in a semifinal. Silverado, which went 17-11 in the regular season, beat Gorman 9-6 in the teams' postseason opener, then went on to defeat Sierra Vista 6-5 in the double-elimination tournament.

Durango's Spirit of 76 team capitalized on several miscues by Palo Verde in Wednesday's late game to take a 7-3 victory against the Panthers. Both teams suffered from chronically poor aim on thrown balls, but Palo Verde seemed to be a little further off at the same time that Durango had runners in more opportune positions.

In all, Palo Verde finished with four errors, Durango with one.

All-state pitcher Mike McClaren went seven innings for Spirit of 76, giving up six hits and one earned run while striking out four Panthers. He walked three batters.

Durango coach Tom Appleyard credited McClaren with guiding his team past the Panthers.

"McClaren's done that for us all summer long," Appleyard said. "He had one week where he didn't throw well. He goes out there and he battles and he throws strikes usually. We were worried about some of the Palo hitters."

Durango will play Reno at 5 p.m. The Knights are perhaps the biggest surprise of the Legion tournament considering their young lineup and their 2-2 record in the Northern Region tournament in May.

The Durango lineup is relatively intact from the Blazers' regular season - Durango entered the playoffs ranked second in Nevada.

"They've lost tough games in high school, they've lost some tough games this summer, they've had injuries, they've battled through some tough situations, but these kids have battled all summer long under adverse conditions and I'm proud of them," Appleyard said. "We live to play at least one more day. That's what our goal is right now but it's day-by-day."

The winner of Saturday's state championship game plays the Hawaii champion next Thursday at Lied Field in Henderson.

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