The Durant Lions baseball team closed out District 5A-4 play last week with a 12-0 loss to league champ Bishop Kelley and wrapped up with a fourth place finish.
That setback pushes the Lions to Class 5A regional action at Pryor later this week needing three victories to make a return to the state tournament. The Lions will enter the event with a 14-17 record after finishing the regular season with a 10-2 loss to Calera.
Coach Jimmie Wyrick’s club ran into a buzz saw against Kelley as the Comets plated three runs in the second and third innings before tallying one in the fifth and five more in the sixth stanza.
Durant managed only a pair of hits on singles from Cole Robbins and Jared Avalos.
In the Calera contest, the host Bulldogs scored at least once in every frame of the six-inning affair. They built a 5-0 advantage after three stanzas before the Lions got on the scoreboard.
Calera notched a pair in the first inning after a Logan Bumgarner double and Hoff Weil single. Gavin Chaffin singled and scored on a Talon Rose double in the second frame to tack on a run. Jaron Varner belted a home run and Demarcus Dunn and Lex Carlton contributed doubles in the third inning uprising.
The Lions’ fourth inning flurry provided their only three hits of the contest as Holdan Robinson singled, Graham McIlvoy doubled and Elijah McClure singled.
That was all the Calera pitching duo of Zaiden Craige and Bumgarner would allow as they combined for six solid innings, striking out six and walking just one.
Weil produced a double and home run over the final three offensive innings to finish with a team-high three hits for Calera. Chaffin and Cody Langley contributed a pair of hits apiece as every starter for the Bulldogs ended with at least one hit. Bumgarner, Varner, Craige, Dunn, Carlton and Rose had one hit.
