BEARCATS GET UNEXPECTED FINAL HOME GAME

Bearcat baseball seniors assumed their home careers were collectively over after three straight scheduled home games to end the season were all cancelled.

Instead head coach Arron Kimes scheduled a game Monday with Dardanelle, a Class 4A regional qualifier, to prevent an almost full week layoff before the Class 3A Region 1 tournament.

Dardanelle agreed to make the trip to the Billy Kiersey Baseball/Softball Complex giving the Bearcats just a seventh, and final this time, home game this season, although the Sand Lizards would pick up an 8-4 win.

That meant Brooks Herrera got to log one more start, Peyton Tatum got two more hits and threw two shutout innings, Dunn Daniel drove in one more run and David Hicks recorded one more hit and a run scored at home.

Herrera would be one of six Bearcat pitchers – there were 11 total – who took the mound in an effort to get in some regional tournament week work.

Following Herrera (5-4) for the Bearcats were Jace Washburn, Patum, Matt O’Bar, Rhett Nietert, and Dylan Todd. Only Tatum logged two full innings. The only other pitcher used by the Bearcats who did not pitch was Dax Goff.

Washburn, a sophomore, would actually play five positions, manning centerfield, shortstop, first base, and catching.

The Sand Lizards jumped to a 5-0 lead through an inning and a half but the Bearcats would cut back within 6-4 before the Lizards got a couple of insurance runs in the top of the seventh.

Herrera led off the fifth inning for a third time, against a third pitcher, and reached on an error. A Nietert single moved Herrera to third.

Goff followed with a single to score a run and Daniel grounded out to score Nietert to make it 5-2.

Dardanelle added a run on a bizarre sacrifice bunt on which a second out was recorded by a runner who had passed third base and missed it going back to second.

The Bearcats cut the lead to 6-4 in the sixth and had the tying runs in scoring position.

O’Bar started the Bearcat sixth with a single and Hicks followed with another to bring Herrera up, who drew a walk.

Nietert’s second hit of the day plated one run and a groundout by Goff scored another but the Sand Lizard hurler was able to retire the next two hitters without further damage.

Dardanelle added two runs in the top of the seventh and the Bearcats went down in order in the bottom of the inning.

The Bearcats (15-7) will face West Fork at 5:30 Thursday in the final game of the first round of the Class 3A Region 1 tournament in Harrison.