by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington boys baseball team kept its Ark Valley Chisholm Trail League Div. IV title hopes alive with a double-header split at Andale Monday evening.

Wellington would lose game one to the Indians 2-1, but would return to win the nightcap 7-5. The win puts the Dukes at 5-1 in the AV-CTL DIV with Circle and Clearwater left on the schedule. Andale, which combines its baseball program with Garden Plain, is currently at 5-1 in league play with Mulvane and Collegiate left to play.

“We control our own destiny,” said Jesse Dale, Wellington head baseball coach. “If we win out we can at minimum be co-league champs.”

Wellington played what was a very competitive couple of games. But it was the final inning of the second game that had Crusader fans on edge.

The Crusaders were leading by a healthy 7-2 advantage thanks to an impressive first start by freshman hurler Cade Phelps. But in the bottom half of the seventh, Andale made its move with a couple of singles and a double steal by Harrison Denk to pull within three, 7-4.

But after Chance Shogren hit a double with two outs, scoring another Andale runner, he decided to make it a triple. Wellington outfielder Zachary Frederick threw it to third where Trevor Nance would tag him out and preserve the win.

The second game is the first time the varsity Crusader boy seniors have beaten Andale in football, basketball, or baseball. With the split, Wellington is now 7-3 overall and will have Thursday off before traveling to Buhler next Monday.

In game two, Wellington had 12 hits, and took advantage of four Andale errors.

Wellington would open a 1-0 lead when Cameron Bartelson singled and scored in the top of the second. A Therin Frame RBI single in the third gave the Dukes a 2-0 lead. After an Andale run in the bottom of the third, Wellington would score three in the top of the fourth thanks to RBIs by Cade Phelps and Austin Dunn.

The Crusaders would had runs in both the top of the sixth and seventh inning to take a 7-2 lead into the final half of the seventh.

Cade Phelps was the winning pitcher in his first varsity start. In six innings he had six hits, two walks and seven strikeouts for a 2.33 ERA. He was not originally supposed to start. Adam Condit injured his knee in PSQ training earlier in the day and had to sit out.

Phelps was relieved by Chevy Nuss and Therin Frame in the seventh.

“I was glad to get the split but would have preferred the sweep,” Dale said. “But I always tell my team the key is to sweep at home and split on the road.”

In the first game, Wellington lost 2-1 despite holding the Indians to just two hits. Again Andale, was sloppy with the ball defensively, committing four errors.

“I told the boys going in that if we played as badly defensively as we did in our last outing, we were going to get smoked,” Dale said.

Although, Wellington did commit two errors in game one leading to the winning run, it was much better than the combined 13 errors made in a Rose Hill double-header last week.

Nance was the starting pitcher. He had two hits, one walk and eight strikeouts in six innings pitched.

Wellington unfortunately couldn’t push players across home plate. The Crusaders lone score was in the top of the second, when Jared Shields scored on a Connor Phelps fielder’s choice.

Andale would break the 1-all tie with two Wellington errors in the bottom of the fifth when Denk hit an RBI double.

Game #1 Andale 2 Wellington 1

Game #2 Wellington 7 Andale 5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
Wellington 0 1 1 3 0 1 1 7 12 0
Andale-GP 0 0 1 1 0 0 3 5 9 4

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