Chaffee baseball team beats pesky Meadow Heights

The Meadow Heights baseball team saved its best game of the season for what turned out to be its final game of the season, according to coach Charlie Doublin.

The No. 7 and bottom-seeded Panthers kept things close with No. 2 Chaffee until the Red Devils' final at-bat in a 5-0 loss at the Class 2 District 3 tournament Monday.

"It was our best game," Doublin said. "We've got one win this season, and they've already 10-runned us twice."

Meadow Heights starter Brent Garland faced the minimum through three scoreless innings.

"Well, you never know what to expect this time of year," Chaffee coach Brian Horrell said. "You can't take anything for granted, and you've got to give Meadow Heights a lot of credit. They came out and their kid threw strikes.

"We was having a little trouble staying back and waiting on him. Their kids made some great plays. I know their third baseman made two outstanding backhand plays that saved some runs early in the game. They were doing everything they could to compete to try to win the game."

Chaffee started freshman Layton Tenkhoff, who walked five and struck out eight while not allowing a run before being relieved by junior Alex Crowe in the fifth inning.

"I think he was probably a little nervous after about the second or third inning because I'm sure he was thinking we was going to have some run support for him today," Horrell said.

Trevor Cannon got Chaffee on the scoreboard with an RBI single in the fourth inning.

"I was surprised," Cannon said. "It jammed me and I just [did] enough to get it over the shortstop's head. The guy scored, so I was pretty excited about that."

Chaffee added a run in the fifth inning before scoring three runs on three hits in the sixth.

"It was nice to finally see us adjust and stay back and try to go the other way," Horrell said.

Chaffee (18-6) will face No. 3 seed and host Saxony Lutheran at 4 p.m. today. Meadow Heights finished the season 1-20.

The Panthers got just two hits but put a runner on base in every inning but the second.

The Panthers stole four bases in the game but lost two runners -- one at third base in the fourth inning and another attempting to score on a wild pitch in the sixth.

"We have to be aggressive," Doublin said. "We don't have a ton of hitters, so we're aggressive on the basepaths. We like to run. We live by it, die by it."

Chaffee won its district championship last season in Class 1 before moving up to Class 2 this season.

"This happened to us last year," Cannon said. "We had a scare first round against Advance. We didn't know what we were going to do, and it kind of got us ready for the next game."

Meadow Hts 000 000 0 -- 0 2 1

Chaffee 000 113 x -- 5 5 1

WP -- Layton Tenkhoff. LP -- Brent Garland. 3B -- Alex Crowe (C), Josh Douglas (M). 2B -- Trevor Cannon (C). Multiple hits -- Meadow Heights: Douglas 2-2; Chaffee: Cannon 2-3. Records -- Meadow Heights 1-20, Chaffee 18-6.