Baseball: Thompson Valley's Kelly pounds Silver Creek

LONGMONT -- With the game tied 3-3 in the top of the sixth, Silver Creek pitcher KC Lord was trying to keep it that way.

Thompson Valley had a runner on first with one out and Kyle Kelly at the plate. Trying to avoid another big hit and to catch the runner leaning, Lord threw a pitch high and wide. But Kelly was having one of those days and he reached out and laced it into right field. It rolled to the fence and Kelly jogged into third base with an RBI triple.

The hit sparked a five-run rally that gave the Eagles an 8-4 win Saturday, and it also typified the day for Kelly and the Raptors in the Northern League matchup.

"It was actually a pitchout, it was up and away, and he threw his bat out there," Lord said.

It was only fitting that Kelly hit a triple on a pitch far out of the strike zone. In his first two at-bats the Thompson Valley senior hit leadoff home runs on two different pitches, which had the Raptors shaking their heads.

"A kid hitting two home runs in this yard, we weren't expecting that," Silver Creek coach Trevor Platt said. "We played them Thursday and we didn't see that."

Neither did Lord, who didn't have much trouble with the rest of the lineup.

"The first at-bat it was fastballs, second time was curveballs. I need to mix it up," he said. "That guy had a good day. It was surprising; I'm not going to lie. Not much I can do about it."

Even with the two home runs the Raptors (1-2, 1-1) were in a position to win the game before the sixth inning. But Lord walked the first two batters before Kelly tripled. Karsen Buschjost followed with a double to give the Eagles (2-2, 1-1) a 5-3 and chase Lord.

"I wasn't tired," he said. "I left a couple of curveballs hanging. I was trying to paint the corners a little too fine and I was missing."

Greg Reynolds came on and gave up an RBI double and two run scoring singles before getting out of the inning.

The Raptors loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh, but a double-play grounder essentially ended the rally.

For Platt, the game wasn't lost there or in the sixth inning.

"It starts further back. We did a good a great job of moving runners into scoring position and we didn't pick those runners up," he said. "If we pick up some of those runners, we're up and that inning may not be a factor."

Lord agreed.

"We should have been hitting a lot better," he said. "It didn't feel good. It really made me mad but we need to move along."

Baseball: Knechtel tosses 1-hitter to lift Raptors over Eagles

LOVELAND -- Wyatt Knechtel was unaware of what he was doing, but he wasn't alone.

Watching the tall right-hander take the hill for a key game for the first time in quite awhile, Silver Creek baseball coach Trevor Platt was just enjoying the show. Little did he realize that heading into the sixth inning of Thursday's game with Thompson Valley that Knechtel was working on a no-hitter.

A sharp single with two outs in the sixth took care of that, but that was the only hit he gave up on the day in leading the Raptors to a 6-1 victory to open up Northern Conference play.

Knechtel said that sometimes it is better to be oblivious to what you're doing so that you can just focus on the task at hand.

"I had no idea," Knechtel said. "I thought I had a couple of guys ... Those kind of things, you don't really want to keep track, because it gets too much in your head. You think about it too much."

Knechtel was in trouble in the first inning thanks to two errors, but worked around that without a hitch. He was in command the whole time, and it came against a team with a reputation for being able to hit the ball. He only walked two and struck out five, keeping his pitch count to a minimum.

It was the type of performance that thrilled and encouraged Platt at the same time.

"He's going to have to be our anchor in the rotation, and he knows that and he wants that role," Platt said. "We'll go as far as he can take us, as well as with our No. 2 starter. It was just fun to watch. He threw 88 pitches in seven innings, 53 for strikes. It was a complete game by a high schooler who has earned that and worked hard in the offseason to get an opportunity to do that last year."

Knechtel helped get the offense rolling with a bit of luck. He hit two-out grounder to the shortstop in the first that took a nasty hop that turned it into a double, and Garrett Howard followed with a two-run single. The Raptors added three more in the fifth, then tacked on another run in the sixth. They had 11 hits on the day, with two each from Knechtel, Howard, Trey Fleming, Greg Reynolds and Scott Platt.

"We just put the ball in play and forced the issue on the bases a bit," Platt said. "It was just a team win. Wyatt's the star of it if you want a star, but it took everyone else to make it happen and finish it off."

Knechtel, who threw four innings in an earlier game as a tuneup, couldn't have asked for anything more in what amounted to a grand return to duty.

"That felt great," he said. "I was definitely missing it last year. It made me feel like I wanted to get back up there and I was ready to go. It felt great to get back out there."