Owlz Win a Fun One for Fourth-Straight Dub

GREELEY, Colo. -- Preston Snavely, sniping stealing runners, small-ball-turned scoring, and the season's first save told the story of Saturday's series-deciding dub. 

With the 6-4 win, NoCo (4-5) knocked off Rocky Mountain (1-9) for the fourth night in a row, the Owlz longest winning streak since a six-game streak in August 2019.

By shoving for six innings, the starter Snavely set his squad's season-high mark for innings pitched in a game. The NoCo native allowed one earned run, didn't walk anyone, and struck out nine batters, also a season high for any pitcher. 

While the Owlz have owned the early aughts of games this series, Saturday saw Rocky Mountain mount an early lead. 

For the third consecutive night, the Vibes' Gio Diaz singled to start the ballgame before scoring the game's first run. Ulysses Cantu continued a solid series with a sac fly in the top of the first, plating Diaz. That ended up being Snavely's only earned run. After that, Miguel Tejada, Jr. reached on an error, which scored Brandon Perez, and Dalys Binder knocked in Tejada with an RBI single to give Rocky Mountain an immediate 3-0 advantage. 

NoCo chipped away at that lead with two RBI from Kevin Higgins - one a run-scoring single, the other a got-the-job-done groundout. Marshall Rich scored on both of them, making the deficit 3-2 by the end of the fourth. 

Rich was well-rounded in this one, also mowing down three potential Vibes base stealers. The final caught stealing came in the top half of the fifth, and the momentum from it built steadily into the sixth.

That's when we got the Cory Snyder special: some small-ball. 

Ty Lewis's leadoff single opened it up. Enter Rich, again, whose attempt at a sacrifice bunt went so well that he ended up on first base with a hit, his second of the game. Jordan Garr tried a sac bunt twice, but he got two strikes on him. So he settled for a rocket shot that split the legs of the third baseman and squirted into left field, scoring Lewis. Next up was Higgins, who hit a sac fly to score Rich, again, for Higgins' game-high third RBI and Rich's game-high third run scored. Even better, NoCo knotted the game, 3-3.

Tyshaun Chapman spelled Snavely to start the seventh, but he allowed a Binder bomb that gave the Vibes a 4-3 lead before walking Paul Carreno. Those became his only two batters faced on Saturday, and that appeared to be a problem. 

When Kyle Adkins replaced Chapman, all three umpires left the field to discuss whether or not Chapman needed to face a third batter, in accordance with league rules. Whatever degree of discussion they had, nothing about the game changed. Instead, Adkins (W, 1-0) appeared after the delay, shut the door on three straight Vibes batters, and ended up earning the win. 

That's because the Owlz took the lead for good the next inning. Brian Dansereau, who hit his league-leading fourth triple in the third, started the seventh with a single. Robbie Kellerman followed suit, and then a pair of wild pitches, plus a passed ball, plated two runs and put NoCo ahead, 6-4. 

It took the tandem of Noah Parsons and Gaylan Young (S, 1) to take this one home. They pitched the eighth and ninth innings, respectively, for the second-straight night, and they reached tossed a tremendous inning of work that included one strikeout. 

Third time's the charm: Young earned the first save of the season in his team's third try. And now, a fourth-straight win means NoCo's notched its first series win of this young season.

These birds of prey are set to play their fifth game of the homestand on Sunday. The chance to get one step closer to a six-game sweep will occur  at 1:05 p.m from Jackson Field.