As if the distraction of playing the No. 8-ranked team in Class 5A in Shawnee Heights wasn’t bad enough, the Emporia High baseball team had to contend with a tornado warning and bolts of lightning during the first game of Tuesday’s doubleheader in Topeka.
But despite spending about 30 minutes at an elementary school to wait out the tornado sirens and then clearing the field for a lightning delay after the end of the second inning, the Spartans were able to fight back from the weather and a late deficit to rally against Shawnee Heights to take Game One, 4-3.
Emporia High dropped Game Two, 4-1, but the significance of the victory in the first game was not lost on EHS coach Mike Strickland.
“Shawnee Heights is a really good ball team,” Strickland said. “I kept telling the kids that they were getting better and better and that we were starting to put things together, and we got it together there late in the first game and got a nice win.”
Both teams plated single runs in the first inning before play was suspended after the second inning because of lightning. Once the game resumed, neither team scored until Shawnee Heights got two runs in the bottom of the sixth against EHS starter Cole Armitage to jump ahead, 3-1.
However, the Spartans (3-11 overall, 3-11 Centennial League) came back strong in their half of the seventh to score the winning runs. A Jared Krause single put a runner on for EHS, and then Taylor Anderson reached when he hit a grounder to the Shawnee Heights second baseman, who bobbled the ball to give Emporia runners on first and second.
That brought Robert Keisler to the plate, and he tied the game at 3 with a triple that scored Krause and Anderson. The next EHS batter, Taylor Clark, singled home Keisler for what would be the winning run, as Armitage slammed the door shut in the seventh for the complete-game victory.
“In the seventh, we finally got our bats going and got some runs across,” Strickland said. “We quit leaving runners on base, and instead got a few of them home.”
In all, the Spartans left eight runners on base in Game One but still came away with the 4-3 victory.
In Game Two, Shawnee Heights pitcher Riley Price effectively shut down Emporia’s bats, as EHS did not plate a run until the seventh and final inning when Keisler hit a double and then scored from third on a Tyler Ast single.
But that was all the offense the Spartans could muster, and Shawnee Heights took the second game.
“We just didn’t get our bats going,” Strickland said.
Tuesday at Topeka
Game One
Emporia 4, Shawnee Heights 3
Emporia 100 000 3 — 4 7 1
Shawnee 100 002 0 — 3 4 0
Armitage and Clark. Reimah, Cooper (7) and Wigington. W — Armitage. L — Cooper. 2B — SH: Stroth. 3B — Emporia: Keisler.
Game Two
Shawnee Heights 4, Emporia 1
Emporia 000 000 1 — 1 3 2
Shawnee 101 020 X — 4 4 0
Loucks, Krause (5) and Clark. Price and Barkley. W — Price. L — Loucks. 2B — Emporia: Clark, Keisler. SH: Cooper.