Roundup: Competition at state level boost team’s experience

A strong season came to an end sooner than expected for Boulder City High School baseball, but coach Ed McCann sees a bright future ahead for his program.

“Obviously, we would have liked to win a state championship this year and I feel like we should have won a state championship this year, but it wasn’t in the cards,” he said. “I believe we were the best team there, but baseball is a long season and we didn’t play well enough when we needed to. This team was mostly made up of sophomores and they didn’t like the feeling of losing. We’ll use that to motivate us next season.”

Defeating Northern challenger Churchill County 5-4 in their opening-round matchup on May 16, the Eagles ended their season with loses to eventual state champion Truckee 3-1 and Churchill County 6-5 on Friday, May 17.

“We had a good run, but we ran out of gas,” McCann said. “We played from behind a lot this season and you can only be the comeback kids for so long. We’ll learn from this experience and be better because of it.”

Excelling in the Eagles’ win over Churchill County, seniors Jimmy Dunagan (2 for 3) and Brendan Thorpe (1 for 4) each drove in a pair of runs, while Blaze Trumble picked up the win on the mound, throwing 1 2/3 innings of relief.

Sophomore Troy Connell started the game, throwing 5 1/3 innings where he allowed four runs, three earned off of five hits with five strikeouts.

Against Truckee, Dunagan batted 1 for 3 with an RBI, while Troy Connell (2 for 4) drove in three runs and Trumble (1 for 2) drove in two runs.

Boys swimming

Coming up short in their attempt to regain dominance in the 3A classification, Boulder City High School’s boys swim team finished as the state runner-up for the second season in a row Saturday, May 18, at the Carson Aquatic Center.

Falling to Northern challenger and defending state champions Truckee (135), the Eagles finished with a total team score of 127 points.

Truckee snapped the Eagles’ streak of seven consecutive state championships last season.

Doing his part to end his tenure with the program as a champion, senior A.J. Pouch won four events for the Eagles, placing first in the 200 individual medley (1:50.42) and 100 breaststroke (55.63), while helping the 200 and 400 relay teams each win.

In the 200 freestyle relay, the team of Pouch, seniors Elias Woodbury and Chandler Larson and junior Ladd Cox placed first (1:34.31), while the quartet of Pouch, junior Joseph Purdy, sophomore Ethan Porter and freshman Martin Thompson won the 400 freestyle relay in 3:19.30.

Both relay teams beat Truckee.

Girls track

Competing in the 3A state meet at Desert Oasis, senior Geri Wachtel ended her tenure with the Lady Eagles with a fifth-place finish out of nine competitors in the triple jump (30-0.25).

Also placing fifth at state out of eight teams, with a time of with a time of 10:48.28, was the 4x800 relay team of junior Keely Alexander, sophomores Chloe Payne and Sophie Dickerman and freshman Mary Henderson.

Gaining state meet experience to build on for the future, sophomore Christina Dunagan placed seventh out of eight in the pole vault (7-0). Henderson placed eighth in the 3200-meter run (12:57.60).

The Lady Eagles finished 16th out of 20 programs with a score of 11 overall points. Northern challenger Spring Creek won the event with a score of 137.

Contact Robert Vendettoli at BCRsports@gmail.com.