Prairie Pushed Into Losers Bracket
Finesse pitching and aggressive play by an old nemesis sent the Prairie Cardinals of Post Falls to the losers bracket in the Idaho Class AA State American Legion baseball tournament Sunday in Lewiston.
David Caron pitched a five-hitter through eight scoreless innings as the Trail, B.C., Eagles, blew by the Cardinals 5-3 at Harris Field despite a late Prairie rally.
Trailing 5-0 in the bottom of the ninth, Prairie’s Ryan Ries slammed his third 3-run homer of the tournament to close the gap, but Caron forced two ground outs to end the game.
The Eagles beat Prairie in three of four outings in District I league play and once in district play to claim the championship while relegating Prairie to runnerup.
“We got a great pitching performance from Davey,” said Trail coach Jim Wasem. “He’s one of our top two pitchers.”
Caron, 11-1, struck out three and walked just two.
The Cardinals (31-27) will face Twin Falls (22-27) this morning at 9 at Harris Field in a loser-out game. The Cowboys, who earned an automatic tourney berth by hosting the state championship last year, eliminated Idaho Falls earlier in the day 7-6.
“I think we know we belong out there with them,” said Prairie coach Darren Taylor. “We just made a couple of errors that hurt us early in the game.”
Brad Medlock pitched the entire game for Prairie, allowing eight hits, striking out two, walking seven and getting other key defensive plays that prevented other runs.
Trail loaded the bases in the first on an error, walk and hit batsman, and David Profili scored from third on a ground ball second out.
Profili scored again in the third on a wild pitch after singling, advancing to second on a hit and run ground ball out and then to third when four Prairie defenders surrounded and then watched a blooper drop behind second base. Jeff Sell, who hit the blooper, later scored on a sacrifice fly by Caron.
“We got some breaks,” Wasem said. “On this level you can’t give any team extra outs. Defense wins championships.”
Ryan Novak will take the mound in this morning’s matchup with Twin Falls. The two teams have met once previously with Prairie coming out the victor. A morning win would advance the Cardinals to a 4 p.m. game the same day against either Pocatello, Nampa or Lewis-Clark.
Trail 5, Prairie 3
Trail 102 010 100 - 5 8 1
Prairie 000 000 003 -3 5 5
Caron and M. Profili; Medlock and Phelps. W - Caron. L - Medlock.
HITS: Trail - Ashman, McCarthy, D. Profili, Sell 2, Caron, Wallace, M. Profili. Prairie - Bevacqua, Bridge, Phelps(2B) , Gorham, Ries (HR).