Holman stymies Sidney in District Opener - Legion Seniors District Tournament

Powered by a three-hitter on the mound and a fifth inning two-run homer by ace right-hander Jayden Holman, Alliance scraped by the Post 17 Sidney senior team 2-1 on a somewhat wild Saturday night at Bower Park in Alliance.

On the heels of some boisterous sixth-inning drama, the game was interrupted by a roughly 20-minute delay when the stadium lights and scoreboard suddenly went out.

Sidney, who came into the district tournament with a first round bye as the top overall seed, now faces an elimination game Sunday against Gering at 5pm.

Holman wasn't quite as dominant this time around as he was against Sidney a little over two weeks ago.

In that game he struck out all nine Sidney hitters the first time through the order and ended up throwing a no-hitter that just fell short of a perfect game.

Facing Sidney for the second time this season, things were tougher for Holman Saturday night-even if only by a smidgen. He finished the evening with 13 strikeouts-four fewer than his last start against Sidney, which did a better job of putting balls in play.

Holman was clearly on his game again, but the Sidney batters were also pinched by a large and inconsistent strike zone all game from home plate umpire Travis Rodak.

Sidney's junior leadoff hitter Bradey Holtz grounded out to second on Holman's very first offering of the game, setting a tone that the team was going to be more aggressive than they were against Holman the first time.

Holman proceeded to retire the next 10 Sidney batters-striking out six-before catcher Colton Onstott connected on a ground ball single to right field for Sidney's first hit of the night in the fourth inning.

After Onstott's single, Holman fanned six of Sidney's next seven hitters, with second baseman Jaden Sears' two-out looped single to shallow right field in the bottom of the fifth being the only exception to the rule.

Meanwhile, Sidney right-hander Travis Garska cruised through the first two innings

before he ran into what appeared to be some deep trouble in the third inning.

Center fielder Gaige Lehl led off the inning with a single to left field. Kellon Hall drew a walk and then catcher Colton Rolls loaded the bases on a bunt infield single that was intended as a sacrifice.

The Sidney faithful held their breath as Holman stepped to the plate with the bases full of Alliance runners. But Garska dug deep, got ahead of Holman and struck him out on a well-placed curveball that had him out in front. Garska then struck out Jeff Heckman and Jordan McCracken swinging to escape the Alliance threat without damage.

Then in the fourth Garska had to battle out of another sticky situation. After Francis Jaramillo lined out to center fielder Austin Pile for the first out, Garska briefly lost control and hit the next two batters-Colton Williams on and Brendon Coward-with a pitch. With Gaige Lehl batting, a wild pitch by Garska advanced Williamson to third with one out.

Lehl then hit into a fielder's choice right to shortstop Lane Harvey, who while running to his right, made an off-balance but accurate throw to nail Williamson at home.

Hall popped out to end another Alliance rally with the game still 0-0.

Alliance finally got on the scoreboard in the top of the fifth.

Garska, who had thrown the ball extremely well in the first four frames, immediately put pressure on himself again by walking the leadoff hitter Rolls to set upnone other than Holman.

Trying to hit the corners, Garska quickly got behind Holman in a 3-0 count. On the next pitch, Holman blasted a two-run homer over the 345 feet sign in left center to put Alliance up for good. Holman then proceeded to retire Sidney's side of the fifth in order.

Garska recovered about as well as he could have, pitching a shutdown sixth inning and getting his team back to bat in the bottom of the sixth only trailing 2-0. His simple philosophy helped him put Holman's big home run behind him.

"You just do what you came to do," Garska said. "You come to throw strikes, you come to be your best."

The bottom of the sixth looked to be more of the same for Holman, as he set down both Kyle Burton and Holtz on strikeouts. With two gone, Harvey was hit in the left shoulder by a Holman pitch and became Sidney's third base runner of the night.

Onstott followed and hit a high pop up that looked playable in medium depth left field about 15 feet from the third baseline.

But the ball fell through for a double, as left fielder Jaramillo couldn't haul it in.

Harvey, who had advanced to third on the hit, bolted for home as soon as Jaramillo threw the ball into catcher Rolls.

The throw sailed over Rolls' glove and Harvey scored, cutting Alliance's lead in half.

Onstott moved to third on the throw, bringing up right fielder Scott Phillips as the go-ahead run.

The Sidney dugout exploded after the 12-inning scoreless streak against Holman was finally broken.

Then came a play that was controversial to say the least. With two outs in Sidney's half of the sixth and Phillips at the plate, Onstott took off for home. Holman's pitch briefly escaped the catcher Rolls but he made a quick toss back to Holman at the plate. Onstott looked to be safe but was called for the third out.

Outraged at the call, Onstott furiously demanded an explanation from home plate umpire Rodak and was quickly ejected.

Onstott, who will sit out Sunday's game because of the ejection, finished the night 2-3 at the plate with an RBI and a stolen base. He raised his season batting average six points to .420.

Off of Holman, he was looking for one pitch all night.

"You're just waiting to hit the fastball and drive the run in," Onstott said.

As Pile and others tried to restrain Onstott, Sidney manager Mark Onstott ran out to appeal the call himself but to no avail. Alliance held on to its 2-1 advantage heading into the seventh inning.

"You have to understand the situation and understand we're in tournament play," Onstott said when asked about Colton's and the team's reaction to the call at home plate. "You can't let it get out of control and you have to let your coaches handle the discussions [with umpires] and walk away from it."

Garska allowed a pair of base runners in the top of the seventh-one on an intentional walk to Holman-but once again held Alliance scoreless, giving Sidney one final chance in the bottom half of the seventh.

Garska finished his district-opening start with an impressive line-two runs allowed on five hits in seven innings. He tallied nine punch-outs and three walks. Garska was clearly disappointed with the game's result despite his strong line.

"The kid [Holman], he's number one in the nation for a reason," Garska said. "I just threw him a curveball and he read it and hit it."

Then came the power outage as the field was suddenly covered in darkness.

Manager Onstott kept his players loose and focused by having them jog as a group from their dugout to the wall and back and take practice swings.

Around 20 minutes the later the game resumed with Phillips leading off the seventh. As if the situation wasn't already difficult enough for Phillips facing Holman, he had to step back into the box and completely refocus after the delay.

"Just got to keep that fire going, keep moving, stay loose," said Phillips on how he handled himself during the break. "You want to be ready for what's coming."

But even on a night when Sidney finally got to him, Holman proved to be too tough on Saturday night. Phillips grounded out to second, as did the next batter Austin Pile. Holman then struck out Garska to cap off the win for Alliance, who advanced to the winner's bracket championship.

LINE SCORE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E

Alliance 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 5 0

Sidney 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 3 0

BOX SCORE

AB H R RBI 2B 3B SO BB SB HBP

Holtz 3 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0

Harvey 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1

Onstott 3 2 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0

Phillips 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0

Pile 3 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0

Garska 3 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0

Sears 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0

Arent 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0

Burton 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0