It certainly wasn't the prettiest played game for either team on Tuesday, but the Billings Wildcats (13-11) emerged victorious when the dust finally settled – edging out SWCL rival Crane (10-14) by a final of 11-9 in the regular season finale for both squads.
Billings, which played on its own field but was considered the away team due to water damage at Crane's home park, used two big innings to help power past the Pirates by scoring four runs in the top of the third and four more in the sixth – accounting for eight of the Wildcats' eleven total runs.
“That's kind of the way we've played all year,” Billings head coach Beau Davis said. “We usually can come up with that big inning or two and that's really kind of helped us get past a lot of our opponents.”
Despite those two money innings, the Wildcats received an early charge in the very first frame when shortstop Kaleb Clinton rocked a 3-1 pitch from Crane pitcher Colton Elder over the left-center field fence for a solo home run to put his team on the board first and create a sign of things to come.
“You just don't know what's going to happen,” Clinton said of his solo shot. “I just came out and was ready to hit.”
The early blast came as somewhat of a relief to Coach Davis, considering his Wildcats were coming off a rough road loss to Monett three days earlier in which they scored only one run.
“It's important to get on the board in the first inning, especially when you're the away team,” Davis said. “To get out there, have at-bats first in the top of the inning and to score like that is huge. It's momentum from the very beginning and it helps us out throughout the game.”
Billings capitalized on that momentum to eventually build leads of 5-1 and 11-6, thanks to a combination of timely hitting from the Wildcats' lineup and questionable defense by Crane all game long.
“Last week we pitched well and played good defense, but this week our defense wasn't very good,” Crane head coach Bryan Harmon said. ”When you score nine runs against a team like this, you should win. We just didn't do it defensively.”
Although errors in the field helped Billings jump out to fairly hefty leads, the Pirates managed to tie the game at five in the bottom of the third after falling behind by four runs and, after facing a five-run deficit in the bottom of the sixth, showed their offensive resiliency in the final two innings to claw back within two runs at 11-9 before Billings reliever Reed Harter struck out Weston Cloyd to end the game.
“We hit the ball well,” said Harmon. “They just kind of kept fighting to get back in it and that's what you've got to do come postseason.”
With both teams now putting the regular season slate behind them, Billings and Crane look toward its respective district tournaments. The Wildcats received a bye to the semifinal round as the No. 1 seed and will await the Verona/Wheatland winner for a Monday showdown, while the Pirates will battle with Blue Eye in the quarterfinals on Saturday.
