Legion baseball seniors headed to districts Friday

Imperial’s Senior Legion baseball team will open district play against Bridgeport Friday a 7:30 p.m. The Horns are seeded first in the district.
Valentine, the second seed, will begin the day against Carl Heath Curtis/Maywood, the fifth seed, at 2:30 p.m.
Sheridan County will take on Hershland in the 3-4 matchup.
The district championship game will be July 29.
The Seniors’ Class C state baseball tournament will be July 31 through Aug. 5 at Palmer.
The Horns shook the dust off in Chappell July 13 with an added game against the Buckley Bombers out of Haxtun, Colorado. It was Imperial’s first game since June 29.
Despite the two-week layoff, the Horns jumped out to a 1-0 at the end of the first. Tristan Hite singled and came around to score on a single by Jaret Peterson.
Imperial added two more runs in the third inning. Three errors by Buckley helped Dominic Sis and Hite reach base. The pair each stole a base and came around to score, giving Imperial a 3-0 advantage.
After allowing a base runner in the first and second innings, Imperial set Buckley down in order in the third and fourth innings.
The Horns suffered the same fate fifth, sixth and seventh innings. Imperial grounded out three times, flied out four times and struck out twice.
Buckley’s offense showed life in the fifth inning after two walks, but both runners were left stranded.
Imperial wasn’t as lucky in the sixth inning. The Bombers’ lead off batter was hit by a pitch and advanced to third on a single. Two runners tagged up on a fly ball and one scored.
Buckley got the walk off win in the seventh inning thanks to a two-out rally.
The Bombers started the inning with back-to-back ground outs. Consecutive walks, a single and an error scored two runs to tie the game at 3-3. After a batter was hit by a pitch to put runners on first and second, a single scored the winning run.
Sis, Bennett Bauerle and Nolan Burrell combined to give up three hits and five walks. Sis struck out eight.
The second game of the double header was called because of lightning.