(Cannon Casey/CHSAANow.com)
LYONS — The resiliency of No. 8 Lyons baseball was once again on display.
It was shown in a 3-2 win over Highland in which the Lions scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth to take the lead. It was shown in an 8-7 extra-inning win over Fort Lupton after Lyons gave up the tying run in the bottom of the seventh.
And now, it was shown in an 8-4 win over Dawson School to clinch the Class 2A Mile High League title.
“That’s exactly what they’ve been doing all year,” Rosales said. “We have a bad inning and they come and get runs on us, we come back with a bigger inning.”
The Lions absorbed every blow that came at them on Tuesday and came back with a harder punch.
With the Lions leading 5-4 in the top of the sixth, Justin Lear walked the first two batters he faced. Then, he got down to business.
“He does that day in and day out. He comes in and cleans up for us at the end,” Lyons coach Ken Rosales said. “I told him no more of those, my heart can’t take those.
Lear struck out five of the six batters he faced as Lyons went on to beat Dawson School 8-4.
“That’s kind of my thing: strikeouts. I get a lot of them,” Lear said. “So, when I have runners on base, I’m not worried too much because this season I’ve always pulled through. I’ve got that confidence.”
In the bottom of the sixth, Lear started a four-run inning with a double in the right-center gap after striking out three batters. Lear had a cushion and could cruise.
“I was just ready to shut it out. It was just me and my catcher,” Lear said. “That’s all that was in my mind, just throwing the baseball.”
Austen Clark started on the mound for Lyons and gave five strong, while going 2-4 with two runs batted in. Clark reached base in every at-bat.
“It felt good out there,” Clark said. “I was just trying to be me, stay relaxed out there and do my job.”
After a sloppy second inning that included two errors, a walk, a wild pitch and two runs all with two outs, Clark went out in the third and posted a 1-2-3 inning.
“We’re resilient. We don’t get too low,” Clark said. “We just fight every time. We’re a great team, we have great team chemistry, we believe in eachother and we have a lot of confidence.”
The Lions have a right to be confident. They are now 14-1 (9-0 league) and are set up for the top seed in district play.
“That’s a huge advantage for us,” Clark said. “Just a huge win that proves that we’re competitors.”
Lyons went out with a gameplan to go right after the Dawson hitters.
“The gameplan was to pitch to them. We knew they could hit,” Rosales said. “The whole thing was pitch to them and get out of the inning with little to no damage.”
But, the Lyons didn’t always execute on defense. All of Dawson’s runs resulted from errors.
“You know, we had those bad innings, but you have to have a short memory in baseball because the next play is coming at you right after that,” Rosales said.
The Lions executed Rosales’ words exactly to hold on and beat the Mustangs in a nail-biting Mile High League win.