Rain, rain go away: Area sporting events postponed

By Eric Wade

Daily Mail Sports Editor

Nevada and the surrounding areas have taken yet another hit from the weather.

A number of events were scheduled to take place Thursday involving Nevada High School, Cottey College, Hume High School and Northeast Vernon County High School teams, but none of those events ended up happening, thanks to heavy rains that moved through the area Wednesday night.

First on the list is a contest between Nevada and El Dorado Springs, which was scheduled for Thursday afternoon at Lyons Stadium. Head coach Danny Penn's squad hoped to build upon the momentum it got from Wednesday's win in Joplin in which the Tigers came out on top of a back-and-forth affair that needed an extra inning to be decided.

"Our entire team battled adversity and came out with a W," Penn said of Wednesday's 9-8 victory. "We made plenty of mistakes that we need to clean up, but players that made mistakes came back and made significant contributions to help us with the game."

Taylor Manes ultimately got the win in what Penn called, "his best game of the year," but Penn said at least as much credit for the victory should be given to Lucas Denman.

"If Lucas doesn't give us five great innings, we're not in a position to be able to win the game," Penn said. "I don't want to overlook his work early in the game."

The Tigers scored two runs in the first inning, one in the fifth, five in the sixth and one more in the eighth to take the victory. Joplin used a total of seven pitchers in the contest.

The Tigers used three pitchers of their own, with Clay Regers coming on to pitch the sixth and struggling to hit his spots. "He'd either be a couple inches off the plate or right down the middle and Joplin put some good swings on the pitches left over the plate," Penn said.

No makeup date for Thursday's game had been decided as of Thursday evening. The Tigers were scheduled to be back in action on Friday at Willard, but that game has also been called off due to Willard needing the date to make up a conference game.

The Tigers' freshman baseball squad was scheduled to travel to McDonald County Thursday, but that contest was postponed indefinitely, as well.

The Nevada Tigers golf team was scheduled to be at home Thursday as well, taking on Butler at the Frank E. Peters Municipal Golf Course. Tigers head coach Brian Leonard said he is "going to try to reschedule for next week, if possible," but no makeup date had been announced as of press time Thursday.

The Nevada Tigers tennis team was scheduled to travel to Monett on Thursday, but that match has been moved to May 1. No JV match will be played and the varsity match is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m., in Monett.

Cottey College was scheduled to host East Central Thursday, at Vanek Family Memorial Field, but those games were called off due to wet field conditions as well. That doubleheader will not be made up.

Hume High School's baseball and softball teams were scheduled to host Uniontown, but those games were postponed indefinitely. Northeast Vernon County rounded out the list with its home baseball game against Sherwood indefinitely postponed.