Black Diamonds christen ‘Turf of Dreams’ with district no-hit rout of Idabel

The Sallisaw Black Diamonds baseball team finally got to play its home opener Tuesday evening on the newly-laid “Turf of Dreams,” and things could not have gone any better in the new turf’s debut.

Sallisaw pitcher Easton Wolfe threw a no-hitter and the Black Diamonds routed the visiting and District 4A-8 foe Idabel Warriors 15-2 in five innings.

Wolfe (2-0) struck out three batters and allowed only six baserunners, all reaching via either being hit by a pitch, a walk or a Sallisaw error. In fact, Wolfe retired 10 of the final 11 batters faced as a two-out walk in the fifth and final inning broke a streak of retiring nine straight batters.

While Wolfe was howling on the mound in complete control of the Warriors (2-9 overall, 0-5 in district play), the Black Diamonds (10-0, 3-0) took control of the game in the second inning.

Down 2-1 after the Warriors broke a 1-all tie in the top of the second inning, the Black Diamonds realistically put away the game in their half of the frame as 13 batters came to the plate, with seven of them scoring.

An RBI single by Wolfe, a sacrifice fly by Johnny Velasquez, an RBI single by Luke Pack, a two-run single by Rylan Eagle and a two-run single by Wolfe produced seven runs and an 8-2 lead after two innings.

An RBI triple by Creed Nelson and a sacrifice fly by Eagle in the third inning upped Sallisaw’s advantage to 10-2 after three innings.

The Black Diamonds put the game into run-rule status with a five-run fourth inning, with the runproducing hits being a suicide-squeeze bunt by Broque Oft, an RBI triple by Pack and an RBI double by Eagle. The first run of the inning scored on a wild pitch, while the other run scored on an Idabel error.

For the game, Pack was 3 for-3 with a triple, three runs scored and two runs batted in, Nelson was 2-for-3 with a triple, two RBIs and two runs scored, Eagle was 2-for-3 with a double, three RBIs and a run scored, Wolfe was 2-for-2 with three RBIs and Caleb Hightower, courtesy running for Wolfe, scored twice for Sallisaw.