Venue change doesn’t faze Buck, Longhorns

Time to read
1 minute
Read so far

Venue change doesn’t faze Buck, Longhorns

Another Saturday. Another stellar performance on the mound by Casen Buck.

This time around, the senior’s right arm helped deliver a championship as Dover downed Glencoe 3-1 in the finals of the Chad Speer Classic.

The first two rounds of the tournament were played at Glencoe, but the championship game was moved to Stillwater High School due to earlier storms in the area.

The Longhorns were dominant on their way to the finals with wins of 19-2 against Ripley JV on Thursday and 13-1 over Frontier on Friday.

Ripley scored two runs in the top of the first inning, but Dover took command with 10 runs in the bottom half of what turned into a three-inning run rule.

Brok Cooper was 2 for 3 with 4 RBIs and 3 runs scored and also threw the final two innings.

He gave up one hit and struck out two.

Trypp Lack also had 4 RBIs and scored three times.

The semifinals also lasted just three innings.

A.J. Avila, who gave up the two runs to Ripley in starting on Thursday, went the distance this time.

He allowed a pair of hits and struck out four.

Avila also drove in a pair of runs and scored twice.

Ivan Ruiz had a big day at the plate as he plated a run with a double in the first inning and added an RBI double in the second.

That was part of an eight-run inning that also saw Cooper, Lack, Avila and Ethan Dayton deliver run-scoring hits.

The game ended in the third when Lack belted his second homer of the season, this one a threerun shot to score Buck and Cooper.

Earlier in the week, Dover hosted Glencoe and sent the Panthers home with an 11-1 loss.

The Longhorns collected 12 hits over four innings, but on Saturday, Race Higdon and Cameron Racy were able to keep them within striking distance.

Dover was held scoreless until the fourth inning and even then had to fight for it.

Cooper drew a bases- loaded walk to tie the game at 1-1.

Dover again loaded the bases in the sixth when, with two outs, Sadler Greb’s double pushed Buck and Daxx Compton across the plate.

That was enough for Buck.

He surrendered an unearned run in the bottom of the third inning, but not much else.

Glencoe managed just two hits and struck out 12 times.

Buck walked only two batters.

The tournament wins pushed Dover’s season record to 10-0 entering this week.