Sidney bats, aggressive base running fuel Junior win

Stringing together combinations of hits and taking advantage of Gering errors, Sidney's Legion Junior baseball team trounced Gering 9-1 in their second home game Wednesday evening.

Juniors Brett Jaggers, Arick Doty and Zach Means put Sidney on the board with a string of singles in the bottom of the first inning, and the squad never looked back.

Jaggers opened the Juniors' first at-bat with a single and after an out by Kyle Lenzen, was primed to score. Doty added his single, and Means added another from the cleanup spot.

Means ended up stranded at second by inning's end, but by then Jaggers and Doty had scored to put the Juniors on top 2-0.

In the third inning, Jaggers led off with a double. He raced to steal third, rounding for home and scored, when Gering's catcher overthrew the bag.

Lenzen reached first on a shortstop error, but was out at second when Doty hit into a fielder's choice.

Doty took advantage of a Gering error when Gering's pitcher overthrew first on a pickoff play. Doty scrambled around second and scampered to third on the play. Doty scored Sidney's fourth run on Means' single to left.

Sidney added two in the fifth, and three more in the sixth. to round out scoring. Gering's lone tally came in the top of the sixth.

Sidney, which has struggled at times with defensive errors so far this season, pared those down, and took advantage of several Gering throwing errors.

"It's always better to take advantage of them than to make them," Coach Ray Witt said of the Juniors' ability to advance runners around the bases due to Gering errors, while cutting errors on their own part.

When asked about the squad's aggressiveness on the base paths, Witt said it's a part of Sidney's game – making opponents put the ball in play.

Jaggers led Sidney's offensive performance, going two-for-four at the plate and scoring three runs. Doty also crossed the plate three times, hitting one-for-four.

As the starting pitcher, Means helped his own cause in a big way, going three-for-three and scoring once.

In all, Sidney scored nine runs on seven hits.

Tonight, the Juniors play Hershey in preparation for hosting the Sidney Junior Tournament this weekend.