Western Boone Jr. - Sr. High School

The Western Boone baseball team is aiming to accomplish some big things in the upcoming weeks. But in order to give themselves a chance to do that, they had to take care of business in a double-header against Southmont on Monday. The Stars delivered on their part, topping the Mounties 5-4 and then 3-0 to improve to 16-9 and 10-3 in the Sagamore Conference. "Southmont plays us really hard every year," Western Boone head coach Michael Nance said. "I don't care what their record is, they play us tough, so to come over here and get two wins is huge for our program." Down 2-1 through three innings in game one, the Stars took a 3-2 lead on a 2-run double by Jack Mallory. Southmont tied the game in the bottom of the fourth, but an RBI-single by Easton Nance in the fifth and an unearned run in the sixth gave the Stars a 5-3 lead. From there it was up to the Stars' pitching. Quinn Westerfeld started and got the Stars through the first 5.2 innings, striking out eight and allowing just one earned run. Beau Sawyer got the Stars out of the sixth, before Nance shut the Mounties down in the seventh. "Quinn gave us a great effort, we had a couple of errors behind him, but he grinded it out," Nance said. "Beau came in and did a great job to get us out of that inning, and then Easton closed it down on nine pitches and then starts game two and had his best stuff of the year." The younger Nance dominated on the mound in game two. Allowing just two hits and striking out eight. The only time he was in trouble was the sixth. With the Stars clinging to a 1-0 lead, the Mounties loaded the bases with two outs and Nance fell behind 3-0 to Colton Cory before coming back to get a strike out to get out of the inning. "It can be hard to coach your own kid, but one of the pleasures of it is I get to see him at 7 in the morning on game day, and I can tell you he wakes up ready to pitch," Nance said. "3-0, bases loaded, it doesn't matter, he just wants to throw strikes." Nance helped his own cause, hitting a sac fly in the third to put the Stars up 1-0. The Stars added insurance in the bottom of the sixth. Sawyer and Layton Yancey walked to lead off the inning, and after a sacrifice bunt, Sawyer scored on a wild pitch before Levi Stewart hit an RBI-single to make it 3-0. "That was huge for us," Nance said. "Levi had a huge hit right there and that changed everything for the last innings. We felt a little more comfortable going back to Easton knowing he's not going to give up three." Nance and Yancey each had three hits on the night. The double header sweep sets up a Sagamore Conference showdown on Friday night at WeBo. With Tri-West and North Montgomery splitting a double-header on Monday, if Western Boone can beat the Bruins they own a share of the conference title. "We are going to have a couple of really good practices," Nance said. "Wednesday and Thursday are really going to be like early-season practices because Friday we are going to have a chance to compete for first place in the conference." Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems.