Hays votes Senators out of NBC
Hays Larks 6, Vienna (Va.) Senators 4

The NBC World Series routinely asks teams to do the unusual in order to play off 42 teams in 15 days.

So Tuesday's schedule didn't seem to bother Hays Larks manager Frank Leo much. After all, Leo is making his 28th trip to the tournament.
The Larks stayed alive with a win over Vienna (Va.) in an elimination game at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. The reward was a date sometime after midnight with Liberal in another elimination game.

"These guys played doubleheaders this year, so this is just a weird doubleheader," Leo said. "We played a game at 4 a.m., so nothing else is going to faze us."

The Larks took a 4-0 lead. Then they let the Senators tie it. Then they scored two in the bottom of the eighth to win it. Cameron Monger, a tournament-addition to the Larks roster, doubled in the go-ahead run.

A team that does that isn't likely to roll over because of a crazy schedule.
"If they wanted to die and not play in the losers bracket, that would have showed up when they tied it up," Leo said. "It's not easy for these guys to do that when it's close to the end of the season and it's almost time to go home."
Hays could have made it easier on itself early in the game. They roughed up Vienna starter Ryan Woolley and his defense betrayed him with four errors in the first three innings.

"We made a lot of mistakes early, and that gives you an obstacle to overcome," Vienna manager Chris Burr said.

Hays did some damage before stopping short of blowing the game open.
The Larks took a 1-0 lead in the first. In the second, they added two more runs and had two men on before the Senators recorded an out. A man caught stealing and two groundballs ended the scoring. Hays stranded two more in third and scored only one despite a leadoff double, a single, an error and a hit batsmen.

Sure enough, those missed opportunities hurt when the Senators rallied.
They finally got to Larks starter Edwin Carl in the seventh. After he departed, the Hays defense contributed a goof of its own.

Carl walked the leadoff batter and gave up two singles to end his night. Reliever Steven Mazur walked in a run and hit a batter to force in another run.
With the bases loaded and no outs, Vienna's Juan Mujica hit a bouncer to first baseman Dusty Washburn. Washburn stepped on first. His throw to the plate skipped wide of the catcher's glove and bounced off the backstop and rolled in front of the third-base dugout. Graham Sullivan scored from third and Shane Brown tied the game 4-all by scoring easily from second.

After the early problems, Vienna's pitching threw four shutout innings to keep the Senators close. The bullpen gave out in the eighth. Hays catcher Eric Roof led off with a double. He scored on Monger's double. Monger made it 6-4 on Brandon Eckerle's two-out single.

The Senators missed their chance to take a lead in the top of the eighth. They loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth. Mazur struck out Mujica to end the inning. In the ninth, Mazur worked around a two-out single to end the game with a pop fly to second baseman Rich Michalek.

The Larks celebrated. Then they went to their hotel to rest up for a game scheduled about five hours later