Prairie, Weldon Valley fight for playoff lives…
Prairie, Weldon Valley fight for playoff lives in districts
Courtesy Photo / OTSportsChek
The Prairie Mustangs will face Caliche in the first round of the 1A District 4 tournament on Tuesday. Neither team faced each other in the regular season.
Brandon Boles / Fort Morgan Times
The Weldon Valley Warriors will face Otis in the first round of the 1A District 4 tournament on Tuesday.
PUBLISHED: May 1, 2017 at 11:11 am | UPDATED: April 24, 2019 at 10:49 am
It's win-or-go-home for the Prairie Mustangs and Weldon Valley Warriors on Tuesday.
Both teams will play in the first round of the 1A District 4 tournament at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling on Tuesday, where only the winners will advance to play for a shot at qualifying for regionals next week.
Prairie enters the tournament as the No. 5 seed and will face No. 4 seed Caliche in the first game of the tournament at 10 a.m. The Mustangs enter the game riding a four-game win streak with victories over Weldon Valley and Briggsdale. They will face a Caliche team that drops down to class 1A after playing the season in the 2A Lower Platte League, where they went 6-13 overall and 4-12 in their league.
The Mustangs have had a productive lineup across the batting order with 11 players recording an RBI this season. Walter Jordan leads the team with nine and Trent Holzworth has six and a team-high five extra-base hits. Caleb Baker and Devon Littlefield are the two leading pitchers for the team in terms of wins and ERA. One of the two could start for the team in Tuesday's game.
Despite their struggles, Caliche has the experience of playing higher competition during the season and will look to lean on that in the tournament.
The winner of the first round game will face No. 1 seed Fleming in the semifinals on Friday at 9 a.m. Fleming earned a first round bye after going 10-2 and running the table in the North Central League during the regular season.
Playing in the final game on Tuesday will be Weldon Valley, who takes the No. 7 seed in the tournament. The Warriors will face No. 2 seed Otis around 2 p.m. for the right to move on to the semifinals.
Weldon Valley met Otis in the regular season finale last week. The Bulldogs proved tough with a 20-2 win in the first game. They would receive a forfeit from Weldon Valley in the second game.
The Warriors went 1-12 in the regular season and will look to control their pitching with the Bulldogs. A high number of walks played a critical role in the team allowing double-digit runs in all but one of the games they played on the diamond this season.
Otis won five straight games to close the season, including a 6-5 win over Peetz, the No. 3 seed in the tournament. The five runs scored by Peetz were the only five runs allowed in the final five games of the season.
Facing either Weldon Valley or Otis in the semifinals will be either No. 3 seed Peetz or No. 6 seed Briggsdale on Friday at 11 a.m.
All of Tuesday's and Friday's games will be played at Northeastern Junior College's baseball field in Sterling.
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