West Plains rallies to beat Andrews

They were one loss from elimination Friday afternoon, but the West Plains Wolves felt perfectly at home.

That’s what good pitching will do.

After falling a game behind Andrews in a best-of-three Class 4A Division I bi-district series, the Wolves came home needing two straight wins to continue their season. Reid Macon and Noah Vasquez provided the foundation for a sweep on the mound, as they got real stingy in leading West Plains to 2-0 and 11-1 wins which completed a 2-1 series victory.

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West Plains (25-6-1) will face Mountain View in the area round next week in Seminole, with game one scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday and game two for noon Friday.

Considering that the Wolves lost only one game in District 4-4A play, they had to carry a lot of confidence into the postseason. That showed with their season on the line.

“This group, that’s just their mindset,” West Plains coach Colby Chandler said. “That’s a risky take going home but fortunately we were able to get both of those here at home and took care of business.”

The Wolves had no choice but to do that right away after Thursday’s 5-2 loss at Andrews (15-14) to open the series. They gave up four runs in the bottom of the second to fall behind and never recovered.

Those four runs were three more than the Wolves gave up over 12 innings Friday. Game two ended after only five innings due to the 10-run mercy rule.

Macon was the biggest reason West Plains was in position to win the series at the end of the day. Things didn’t start of great for him as Daylon Jeffcoats led off the game by singling to left off Macon.

That was the only hit Macon gave up though, and he erased that when the next batter, Jasean Debouse, grounded into a double play. Grayson Martindale then reached on an error, but after that, Macon retired 19 straight batters to close the game.

Perhaps more impressive than that was that Macon threw only 58 pitches in seven innings.

“That was an incredible, incredible performance on the mound,” Chandler said. “Ultimately we had to have that to save the rest of our staff. We’ve got a lot of depth with this group, and we weren’t worried about that.”

Macon got all the support he needed when Alakai Carrillo led off the bottom of the second with a wind-aided solo homer to right field off hard-luck Andrews starter Trace Garcia. The Wolves added an unearned run in the fifth when Boston Ladd’s sacrifice fly drove home Kaden Hooker.

The second game wasn’t nearly as suspenseful. Finding the sweet spot in right field, Jesse Flores and Ladd led off the bottom of the first with consecutive solo homers off Cole Ivison for a 2-0 lead.

Again, that was enough support for Noah Vasquez, who pitched in relief Thursday and went 3 2/3 innings for the win in the series clincher. West Plains broke the game open with six runs in the fifth to knock out Ivison, who left after a second Flores homer, a two-run shot to right, made it 9-0.

Colton Stewart relieved Ivison, and gave up Carrillo’s two-run double which made it 11-0 and assured the run-rule margin.

“People asked if we were going to able to bounce back and there’s no doubt with this group,” Chandler said. “It’s just the type of kids they are. They shake it off and go on to the next game. We told them to play two but take it one game at a time.”