Sidney Tops Wood Bat Event

Sidney's 12U Cal Ripken baseball team won their division in the Sidney Wood Bat Tournament at Legion Park over the weekend.

Sidney's 13U team was the runner up in their division, falling to Brush, CO in the championship game.

After defeating the Westco/Scottsbluff team in the semi-finals 6-to-5, the Sidney boy's faced off against the Brush, CO team in the 12U championship game, and defeated the visitors 8-to-0 to earn the 12U Wood Bat Championship. In the 10U division, the Westco/Scottsbluff team defeated the Yuma, CO team 7-to-2 to take the 10U title. The 13U Sidney team was the runner up in their division, falling to the Brush squad Sunday night.

On Saturday, the 13U team split their games, defeating Alliance 9-to-3 in the early game and then losing to Brush 5-to-3 in the afternoon game. On Sunday, the 13U team had to wait to play their first game against Alliance as a lightning delay and a 9 inning contest between Westco and Brush pushed the start time back to a bit after 5 p.m.

Sidney's Jaeden Dillehay pitched well, going four innings while recording seven strikeouts, but gave up four runs during his outing, allowing Alliance to tie the game 4-to-4 in the fourth inning.

Sidney had taken a 4-to-1 lead in the second inning, scoring four times highlighted by Hayden Sircy's three RBI bases loaded single during the rally. Alliance was able to chip away and tie the game, then rallied for four runs in the sixth inning to take the lead. Sidney fought back with two runs in the bottom of the sixth, then managed to keep the Alliance team scoreless in their half of the seventh.

In the bottom of the seventh, Sidney was able to score three runs, highlighted by Sawyer Dickman's walk-off game winning hit.

Sidney then faced Brush for the championship, and a game that was very tight over the first five innings became lopsided as Brush scored three runs in the sixth and five in the seventh to earn the 9-to-1 victory and win the tournament.