Griffons bust River Bandits

The Nevada Griffons avenged an earlier loss to the Kearney (Mo.) River Bandits with an 11-5 win at Lyons Stadium on Wednesday night. Griffons coach Daryl Byrd was pleased with the all-round solid effort from his ballclub. "We played pretty good defense, we pitched fairly well and we hit the ball when we needed the big hit," said Byrd. "That's the key to baseball. You get good pitching, you make the routine plays and you come up with timely hitting and you got a chance to win the game." Sidearmer Ty Hanson (3-1), a junior at Bossier Parish Community College, went seven innings to pick up the win. Hanson allowed four runs, two earned, on three hits. He walked one and struck out none. Said Byrd, "Ty (Hanson) is a competitor. He's a hard-nosed guy, a tough kid and he wants the ball. He's a guy that's going to go out there and battle his butt off for as long as he can go and that's what he did tonight. He didn't have his great stuff, but he gave us a quality effort." Rob Bergin earned the save with two innings of one-run relief. The Griffons (24-11) scored two in the first inning when leadoff hitter Eric Horstman, who led the 13-hit attack with three hits, beat out an infield single, then scored on Kirk McConnell's line triple to straightaway center field. McConnell scored on designated hitter Brandon Green's groundout. Kearney (16-16) evened the score at 2-2 with two second-inning runs, but the Griffons retook the lead with a single run in the third and added another in the fourth. But back came the River Bandits with two runs in the fifth to tie it at 4-4. The Griffons added a run in the bottom of the fifth to creep back into the lead. Clinging to a slim 5-4 advantage after five innings, the Griffons (24-11) plated two runs in the sixth and four in the eighth to close out the River Bandits in the non-league contest. Catcher Brian Bugg's two-run double down the right-field line accounted for the sixth-inning runs to increase the lead to 7-4. After Kearney narrowed the margin to two at 7-5 with a run in the eighth inning, the Griffons went to work in the bottom of the frame. The swift Horstman beat out a drag-bunt single to lead off the inning, then stole second for his team-leading 18th in 23 attempts. McConnell was hit by a pitch, preceding team batting leader Chad Steele's RBI single which drove home Horstman, who also leads the Griffons in runs scored. With runners on first and second, Green cleared the sacks with a shot into the right-center field gap. "I hadn't really seen very many good pitches all night," said Green, "but I got a good pitch I could drive and I was able to (put) it in the gap and produce some runs." Green, a Wichita State-product, has been relegated to DH'ing only since he suffered a deep bone bruise to an ankle last week. "I'm pretty immobile right now; I can't cut on it or run the bases well," he said. "It's pretty stiff down there, but it's getting better and, hopefully, it'll come around." However, there appears to be no urgent need to rush Green's return to the defensive side. The shortstop position is well-manned by the soft, capable hands of Nevada's-own Zach Hawks. Hawks made all the plays with a game-high nine assists and was the middle man in a beautifully-turned 3-6-3 double play initiated by first baseman Ty Law. On the offensive end, Bugg and Thomas ripped two hits apiece behind Horstman's three, while Green led with three RBI's. Bugg and McConnell drove home two each. The Griffons return to Jayhawk League action tonight, hosting a doubleheader against the Liberal BeeJays.