NBC World Series: Foresters-Lonestar final set; Cheney Diamond Dawgs baseball third
The Santa Barbara Foresters will attempt to defend their championship against Lonestar (Texas) Baseball in the National Baseball Congress World Series championship on Saturday night at Riverfront Stadium in Wichita.
Lonestar emerged victorious in the consolation bracket final, a 7-5 victory over the Cheney Diamond Dawgs, which means the Austin, Texas-based club will need to knock off the undefeated Foresters twice on Saturday night to win the title. The first game is scheduled for 6 p.m.
For Cheney, it was the third straight top-three finish in the tournament after the club had lost in the championship game in back-to-back summers. It was also the second loss for the Diamond Dawgs in the tournament to Lonestar, the only team they lost to.
In the end, their own mistakes would prove fatal to the Diamond Dawgs.
George Specht, a Shawnee native fresh off playing in an NCAA Super Regional this summer with Dallas Baptist, gave Cheney a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the fifth inning with a 2-RBI hit. But errors in the seventh inning allowed Lonestar to score two runs to take a 6-5 lead and Cheney was never able to recover.
Still, it was another impressive run for the Sunflower Collegiate League team after winning two straight elimination games, highlighted by Thursday’s 11-1 run-rule win over the Hays Larks behind the handiwork of Wichita State pitcher Spencer Hynes, who struck out eight hitters and allowed a single earned run on just two hits in six innings of work.
Pittsburg State’s Ryan Koval was a timely hitter for the Diamond Dawgs throughout the tournament and it was his two-run home run in the third inning against Hays that jump-started the team. Koval led the NBC World Series in batting average at .476, while teammate Jaxson Syring, a recent Derby graduate headed to Butler Community College, wasn’t far behind with a .438 average.
This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
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