Thursday, July 4, 1996

Prairie Dogs Clinch First-half Title

By LANCE FLEMING
Staff Writer

Abilene, you've got a winner in town.

The Prairie Dogs clinched the Texas-Louisiana League's first half championship Wednesday night with a 2-1 win over Tyler in front of 1,424 fans at Scott Field.

The victory pushes the Prairie Dogs' record to 30-15 and keeps them five games ahead of Lubbock, which beat Alexandria, 7-6, Wednesday night. Rio Grande Valley, which was five games out of first place entering Wednesday's game, was in extra innings with Amarillo at press time.

But it doesn't matter now, because the worst the Prairie Dogs can do in the first half is 30-20, and the best either of the two teams is the same record. However, Abilene holds a better head-to-head record against each team, and that gives it the first half title.

"We knew we wanted to get the monkey off our back and move on," Abilene pitcher Kerry Knox said. "We want to get ourselves ready for the second half, hopefully win that title and get a bye."

The Prairie Dogs, who have earned the top seed in the post-season with the first-half title, could earn a first-round bye in the playoffs by winning the second half championship.

They did it in the same manner in which they've collected most of their 14 home wins: outstanding pitching, solid defense and timely hitting.

Knox, whose been sick with a chest cold for most of the last week, gave the Dogs 51/3 solid innings before exiting in favor of Lance Schuermann. He pitched well for 21/3 innings before giving way to Ken Winkle, who pitched the final 1/13 innings to pick up his league-leading 12th save.

Those three pitchers limited the Wildcatters to just six hits and walked only two.

Knox didn't allow a run, but was removed from the game in the top of the sixth with one out and a man on first base.

"I didn't really want to come out of the game," Knox said. "I wasn't going to get any better, but I wasn't going to get any worse. But Lance has been doing a good job, and I had all the confidence in the world that he would come in and shut them down."

Abilene manager Phil Stephenson had been monitoring Knox throughout the game, and felt the top of the sixth was the best time to take Knox out of the game.

"I was hoping he would give us five solid innings, and he did," Stephenson said. "I kept watching him when he came into the dugout and sat down, and he kept looking worse and worse. I was concerned with him fatiguing and then hurting himself. I don't blame him for being upset about coming out of the game. But I was looking further down the road than just one game."

Abilene, which collected just three hits off four Tyler pitchers _ all off starter Greg Brummett, a former major leaguer with Minnesota and San Francisco _ got on the board in the first inning when Eric Gonzalez scored when Rod Brewer grounded to first base, but reached on an error by Brummett.

The Prairie Dogs got the eventual game-winning run in the fourth when Paul Coleman scored from second on a Scott Malone double.

Schuermann gave up a solo home run to Jim Cooney leading off the seventh, but that was all the Wildcatters would get. Winkle entered the game in the eighth with two outs and runners at first and third, but got Cooney to ground out to second when Gonzalez made a nice play on a high chopper in the hole.

Winkle then got the Wildcatters in order in the ninth to nail down the first-half title.

"It's nice to know we're going to be in the playoffs," Stephenson said. "But we've just accomplished one of the three goals we set before the season. We wanted to win the first half, win the second half and then win the whole thing. We're a third of the way there."