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Eagle Valley baseball blasts its way past Glenwood

Chris Freud
Vail Correspondent
Post Independent
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado

GYPSUM, Colorado – The good news is that eventually Eagle Valley baseball likely got so dizzy that the Devils stopped running around the bases.

Eagle Valley won Game 1 of a pair against Glenwood Springs, 13-3, Thursday and hung on for a dear life, 25-7, in the nightcap Thursday at Nolan Field in Gypsum.

“We worked really hard on our hitting yesterday,” Devils manager Ken Reagan said. “We came outside. I think I threw about 500 pitches on the field and coach [Ellsworth] threw 500 in the cage. The way you practice is the way you play.”



That certainly worked for the Devils (6-3 overall, 5-1 in the 4A Western Slope League), who unleashed a barrage of 38 runs and five homers during the two games.

Meanwhile, it sent Glenwood (3-5, 1-3) back to square one.



“This really set us back,” Demons skipper Eric Nieslanik said. “We’ve been playing some OK baseball and today all aspects of our game were no good. When we play like this and struggle like this and not adjust against a good team like Eagle Valley, we’re going to get beat, and it’s going to look like that.”

Eagle Valley’s Pat Knabel blasted a three-run homer to center in the second inning of the opener, and an eight-run third inning broke it open for the Devils. In that frame, it was James Van Dyke with a three-run jack and Adam Horst with a two-run single doing a lot of the damage.

Jack Barbella went the distance in Game 1, fanning eight and allowing just two hits. The three Glenwood runs against him were unearned because of a two-out error.

“Every game, except for today’s second game, we’ve had an inning where we don’t make a bunch of outs that they give us,” Reagan said. “It’s something we need to work on.”

In the nightcap, the Demons stayed close until the Devils had a five-spot in the third and 11 more in the fourth.

Horst hit a three-run shot to left in the third inning. Nick Pietrack left the yard in the fourth and Van Dyke had his second homer of the day in the fifth.

“That’s actually the most home runs I’ve seen from my team in a doubleheader since I’ve been here,” said Reagan, who’s in his fifth season with the Devils.

Seth Williamson picked up the win in Game 2.

Eagle Valley is at Battle Mountain Tuesday at 4 p.m. The game is actually scheduled for the diamond at the old campus in Eagle-Vail because the sod has not grown in on the new field in Edwards.

Meanwhile, Glenwood is at Rifle on Tuesday at 4 p.m.

cfreud@vaildaily.com


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