BY CAYDEN SANDERS
PHOTOS BY JESSALYN KIRCHHOFF AND CAYDEN SANDERS
The Larks welcomed the Colorado Tribe to Larks Park for their final home non-league series this season. The Larks won the two-game series by run rule in the seventh inning in both games.
The Tribe traveled from Aroura, Colorado, and are made up of primarily high schoolers sophomores and juniors from Smokey Hill High school in Aroura. The Tribe were missing critical pieces of the team: collegiate prospects who did not make the trip to Hays.
“Matching this experience in Colorado is unheard of; playing in the leagues we play in doesn’t give us the opportunity like an elite collegiate program like the Larks; we just don’t get a chance to see that in Colorado,” Tribe Head Coach Trevor Van Luit said. “So it got us to see high-velocity pitching, great breaking balls, great off-speed pitches, amazing hitting, and good coaching. And you know, selfishly as a coach, it was good for me to see some of those legends out here.”
In the series’ first game on Sunday, the Larks’ offense was no match for the Tribe as they scored 23 runs to the Tribe’s 0. Tyler LaRue hit an RBI single in the first to give the Larks a 1-0 lead. In the second inning, the Larks scored eight more runs. The Larks added another four runs in the third inning to take the lead by 13 runs. By the end of the fourth, the Larks tallied another six runs. After this inning, the Larks put the pitchers on the field to get some reps while the stakes were low during the summer ball season. The Larks continued to shut out the Tribe in their of another victory.
In the second game of the series on Monday, the Tribe got on the board first, but Lark’s offense was the only team to score for the remainder of the game. The Larks lead the Tribe 6-1 going into the fourth inning and in the fifth inning, the Larks scored nine runs to push the lead to 15-1. The Larks finished the game, winning by the final score of 16-1.
“We got to build; we got to grow. We got to teach our kids; we got to coach our kids. And that’s what this is about,” van Luit said. “You know we’re going to coach baseball; baseball is our medium. We want to coach kids to be great young men and be great in the community. We learned a lot about the kids in the last four days.”
The Larks are back in action tonight against a Rocky Mountain Baseball League foe, the third-place Dodge City A’s. First Pitch is set for 7:30 p.m. at Larks Park.
