Imperial Pinnacle Bank Juniors improve to 10-2

    The Imperial Pinnacle Bank Junior Legion baseball team added two wins last week, starting off with a 10-0 victory at Ogallala Thursday.
    All 17 Horns played in the game. Imperial lead-off hitter Thomas Reeves advanced to second to start the game on back-to-back Ogallala errors. Reeves scored on a Jaret Peterson double. Peterson came around to score on a another pair of errors.
    Imperial batted around in the second inning. Mason Wallin, Cooper Dillan, Camron Lempke and Tristan Jablonski singled, while walks went to Tyler O’Neil and Jaret Peterson.
    The Horns carried a 9-0 lead into the fifth inning. Reeves took advantage of three Ogallala errors to score Imperial’s final run of the game.
    Imperial played error-free baseball while benefiting from nine Ogallala errors.
    Peterson and Dillan each had two hits to account for half of the juniors eight hits in the game.
    Peterson pitched a three-hit complete game, allowing no walks while striking out nine.
    The juniors squeaked out a 4-3 win over Broken Bow at home Saturday.
    Broken Bow started off the game with three straight singles and jumped out to a 2-0 lead. Each of Broken Bow’s first five batters put the ball in play, but the Horns only let two runs score.
    Imperial responded with a three-run inning. Reeves walked to lead off the game and advanced to third base on passed balls. Reeves scored on back-to-back errors that allowed Wallin to reach second.
    Another passed ball moved Wallin to third and he scored on a single by Peterson. Jablonski, Lempke and Dillan loaded the bases and brought Peterson home, but the Horns left the bases loaded.
    After scoreless second and third innings, Broken Bow used an Imperial error to tie the game at 3-3. The Horns responded in the bottom of the inning, using back-to-back Broken Bow errors to bring home Reeves for the deciding run.
    Broken Bow had five base runners over the final three innings, but wasn’t able to score any more runs.
    Imperial loaded the bases in the sixth inning, but also couldn’t add runs to its total.
    Holding a 4-3 lead, the Horns didn’t have to bat in the bottom of the seventh.
    Imperial was out hit 8-4 by Broken Bow, but the Horns only had two errors to three for the visitors.
    Peterson pitched a complete game, giving up eight hits and a walk to go with nine strikeouts.
    Imperial’s week wrapped up with a 0-4 loss at Holdrege Sunday. Holdrege is the only other loss on the Horns’ schedule, a 9-11 loss May 29.
    After stranding Wallin on third base in the top of the first inning, three errors were costly for the Horns in the bottom of the inning. Holdrege scored two runs on two hits.
    Both teams struggled to move runners into scoring positions over the next four innings.
    A walk and two singles by Holdrege added two more runs to its total in the bottom of the sixth inning.
    Trailing 0-4, Imperial went down in order in the seventh inning to end the game.
    Four errors hurt the Horns. Holdrege had just one error in the game.
    Dillan went the distance for Imperial, striking out four, and giving up six hits and two walks.
Up next
    The Horns will host Ogallala Wednesday for a junior-senior doubleheader.
    Friday the juniors will host McCook. The evening will start with McCook’s final at bat from the teams’ June 7 game, followed by a makeup game from May 31.
    On Sunday the juniors will host Cozad and Monday the Horns will travel to Broken Bow for a junior-senior double header.