The ballgame could not have looked more dissimilar to Friday\u2019s contest between the same teams, but the outcome was the same: the Palisade High School baseball team defeated Durango 9-8 on the road Saturday to complete the season sweep and claim the Southwestern League title.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday was a chess match, but today was more of a boxing match,\u201d Bulldogs head coach Nate Porter told The Daily Sentinel postgame. \u201cWe as coaches could tell it was not going to be a low-scoring game, and our guys were ready to hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durango set the tone in the top of the first, scoring three runs before the second out of the contest was recorded. But the Bulldogs did their best to stay upbeat in the dugout, and responded in a big way the next inning.<\/p>\n
After managing only five hits total in Friday\u2019s 1-0 victory, the Bulldogs erupted for five runs in the second inning on Saturday to take a 5-3 lead behind back-to-back home runs from Hunter Howard and Kian Kinslow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Kian, they just hung a curveball and I still don\u2019t think that thing has landed,\u201d Porter quipped.<\/p>\n
Junior Marshall Hickerson also drove in a run with a triple in the tone-setting inning. He later scored as one of the three runs that came across on Howard\u2019s blast.<\/p>\n
Durango rallied in the back half of the contest, producing runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. But on all three occasions, the Bulldogs had the answer in the home half of the inning, keeping the contest barely out of reach of the Demons. Palisade, ostensibly, was the home team in Saturday\u2019s contest despite it being played in Durango, as the Demons were the designated home team in Friday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
Kinslow and Howard each finished Saturday\u2019s contest with multiple hits. Senior shortstop Howard went 2 for 4 with a run scored and four RBI, three h coming via that second-inning home run. He also earned the win on the mound after throwing 2 1\/3 innings of two-hit, one-run baseball in relief of starter Will Seriani. Senior first baseman Kinslow, meanwhile, went 3 for 4 with a double to go along with his solo home run and two runs scored on the afternoon.<\/p>\n
Palisade finishes the regular season 20-3 after the weekend sweep. At 8-2 in SWL play, they have officially clinched their first league championship since leaving the Western Slope League at the conclusion of the 2023-24 academic year. They will enter postseason play riding a nine-game winning streak.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs remain the top team in Class 4A by Maxpreps\u2019 RPI metrics, and will host a regional for the second straight year next weekend in the first round of the Colorado High School Athletics Association\u2019s state tournament. Regional draws have not yet been released, but are expected to be published on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels good to host, because we like to pick our game time, and we like the home-field advantage with our fans.\u201d Porter said. \u201cWe like not having to travel. But at this stage of the season, we can\u2019t get too comfortable. Everyone\u2019s 0-0 now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ballgame could not have looked more dissimilar to Friday\u2019s contest between the same teams, but the outcome…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,5,2316,2323,2314,2317,2313,2325,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,2307,2321,185,2324,2311,2312,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-696112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-baseball-competitions","12":"tag-baseball-events","13":"tag-baseball-finals","14":"tag-baseball-games","15":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","16":"tag-baseball-teams","17":"tag-major-league-baseball","18":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","19":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","24":"tag-mlb","25":"tag-mlb-playoffs","26":"tag-mlb-postseason","27":"tag-outdoor-sports","28":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-sports-events","31":"tag-team-sports","32":"tag-turf-sports","33":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}