Sure the stakes were entirely different and they were playing under a different banner, but for the core of Douglas High baseball players who were on the field against the Galena Spartans Sunday afternoon, victory had to taste pretty sweet.
The Sierra Sun Devils, Wooster's summer baseball program, annually gathers some of the top talent from around the area to fill their roster.
Starting three summers ago with Chad Walling and Jimmy Pierce, Douglas High started pipelining some of its top seniors to south Reno to play for the Sun Devils.
Sierra played its way into the semifinals of the Joe DiMaggio World Series over the weekend and picked up a thrilling 10-9 win over the Spartans, Galena's summer team, to get there.
Galena had many of its Northern 4A Regional Championship players on the field for the game, while Douglas, the regional runner-up, had quite a contingent in the other dugout.
Douglas graduates Phil Mannelly, Niko Saladis and Cory Eilers and Tiger senior-to-be Jordan Hadlock were among the Sun Devils' top producers over the weekend.
After seeing their season end against the Grizzlies in each of the past two seasons, the Tiger remnant got a little bit of revenge in the end.
It was announced last week that Galena head baseball coach Gary McNamara will be leaving the team to coach at the University of Nevada next year.
McNamara posted a 155-59 record in six seasons with the Grizzlies and captured the last two Northern 4A Regional titles.
He spent three years as an assistant at Nevada and helped guide the Wolf Pack to a pair of NCAA Regional appearances before taking over at Galena.
The ramifications will remain to be seen until next baseball season, obviously.
Losing McNamara is a tough blow for the Grizzlies, but the feeder programs of the Washoe Little League are second to none.
I'm sure we can expect to continue to see the Grizzlies right in the thick of things come playoff time for many years to come.
Shawn Estes allowed four runs (two earned) in five innings in his third outing for Single-A Lake Elsinore.
The 1991 Douglas High graduate may return to the San Diego Padres rotation soon.
The left-handed pitcher is coming off reconstructive surgery to his left elbow in June, 2006 and last made a Major League start on April 6 of that year for the Padres.
Yet another riddle, adapted from Dom Forker's Baseball Brain Teasers Puzzlers:
Carson comes to Minden to take on the Tigers in an afternoon game.
A Douglas batter lifts a pop-up fly into short center field. The Carson center fielder comes in for the ball while the shortstop and second basemen go out as well for the short fly.
Everyone loses it in the sun, however, and the ball falls untouched on the outfield grass.
The Douglas batter rounds first base and sees no Senator player covering second.
He easily stretches the single into a double.
Whose responsibility was it to cover second base on that play?
See below for the answer.
Alyce Kugler, rodeo and Niko Saladis, baseball. Kugler had a strong showing in girls' cutting at the National High School Finals Rodeo in Springfield, Ill., last week while Saladis came up with a number of big plays for the Sierra Sun Devils in the Joe DiMaggio World Series over the weekend.
The first baseman blew the cover. There was no play at first, so he could have vacated his base. If he had made the proper play, the batter would have rounded first and returned to the bag.
That way, if the runner strays too far from first, the Carson pitcher would theoretically be at the base for a possible play behind the runner.
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