MEEKER I The Meeker High School Cowboys high school baseball team finished the regular season with a 7-11 record, and they will now play in the district tournament.
The Cowboys will play Dolores on Friday in Cortez, where the winner will take on Paonia, for the district championship and a chance to advance to the 2016 Colorado State Baseball Championships.
Meeker lost a doubleheader to Cedaredge in the final home games at Paintbrush Park.
“We fell behind early in the first game, but the boys battled back to make it close,” head coach Brian Merrifield said of the first game against the Cedaredge Bruins, which the Cowboys lost 12-11.
The Cowboys fell behind 6-2 after the first inning, then trailed 8-3 at the end of the fourth inning. Meeker came back and scored three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning, to pull within two of the Bruins.
Both teams scored four runs in the sixth inning and Meeker was only able to score one run in the seventh inning, falling one run short.
Nick Burri, the Cowboys’ only senior, had three hits, including his first career home run on his final day at Paintbrush Park.
Doak Mantle also recorded three hits while Trapper Merrifield had two and Hunter Garcia, Uri Goedert, Eli Hanks and Cooper Meszaros all had a single hit in the first game.
Logan Hughes started and pitched more than five innings, recording seven strikeouts, and he had 22 first-pitch strikes.
In the second game, Coach Merrifield said his team “struggled against Cedaredge’s lefty.”
Doak Mantle got Meeker’s only two hits in the game.
Merrifield, Garcia, Luis Villalpando and Burri all pitched in the second game.
The Cowboys, who finished third in the 2A Western Slope League, will travel to Cortez for a game against the Dolores Bears, the second-place team from the San Juan League.
The winner will play against the No. 1-ranked team in the state, the Paonia Eagles, for the district championship.
