Red Devils open baseball season with fireworks

It took three innings for Chaffee to eclipse the double-digit scoring mark in its first game of the season.

The Red Devils cruised to a lopsided 14-2 victory against Delta in five innings on Monday night, opening the season with a mercy rule victory.

“The kids kind of surprised me,” Chaffee head coach Aaron Horrell said. “It’s the first game so you never really know what you have until you get in a game situation.

"We have done some intersquad scrimmages and in the last two weeks, our hitting is really kind of worn our pitching out. Those first couple of innings we were getting some barrels on some balls and it’s good to see because we’ve been a really young team last year and brought back everybody but one full-time starter.”

Chaffee sophomores Connor Berry and Easton Fowler tallied three hits a piece, while junior Carson Spies finished with five runs batted in to lead the Red Devils offense.

In total, while the offense cranked out 11 hits and four walks, the defenses both struggled in the opening game of the season. Between Delta and Chaffee, the teams committed 11 errors across five innings of play.

Chaffee’s pitching staff made up for it, pitching 10 strikeouts across 15 outs, with four pitchers working to hold the Bobcats to just one earned run in the ballgame. Starter Peyton Vaughn made his Chaffee debut, coming from Egyptian High School in Tamms, Illinois. He threw 3.1 innings, giving up three hits and an earned run with six strikeouts.

“He’s just Mr. Consistency and Mr. Fundamental,” Horrell said. “He does all the fundamental things right. He throws strikes, so we wanted to get him out there and knew he would be consistent for us.

"He got into the fourth inning, got hit on a comebacker back at him. We wanted to try to let him get another batter to finish on a strong note, and he had a good day offensively too. So it was really good to see him in our Red Devil uniform and hope that he can be a big part of us moving forward.”

Kade Atkins, Blake Yarbro, and Eli Glueck combined to pitch the remaining 1.2 innings, with the three junior arms not surrendering a hit out of the bullpen.

“We’ve got a lot of quality kids,” Horrell said. “We played 17 or 18 different kids today. We’re gonna let the kids make the decision on who plays. They’re gonna get chances and what they do with those opportunities gonna determine who’s in there come May.”

With the Red Devils looking to avenge their loss in last year’s Class 2 District 3 championship game, the team looks to lean on a strong defense in order to reach new heights this season.

The Red Devils travel to Leopold on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.