The Westco Zephyrs could not make it two wins in a row over the North Platte at Cleveland Field. The latter visited for a regular season game last week with Mark Moran's crew winning 16-8. It was a similar score Thursday night during the opening round of the Class A Area 7 Junior Tournament, but North Platte came out on top 12-8.

"We got off to a good start," Moran said. "But North Platte just kept battling. They have a good line-up. They just kept scoring. We put up a few runs in the seventh and eighth to make it interesting. It was a good game. We'll just have to come out to day and play the best we can."

The Zephyrs will tangle with Hastings, who got blasted by top seeded Kearney 24-1. The Zephyrs will play the early game at five. The Kearney-North Platte game will follow at eight.

The Class A Area 7 Junior Tournament started in Hastings last night and it didn't go well for the Westco Express. They fell 11-1 to host Hastings. Kearney won the other opening round game, 9-3 against North Platte.

Gering B & C Steel lost its opening game of the Area 7 Class B Tournament in Chadron Wednesday, 5-4 to the Buckley Bombers. It was Gering's first game of the tournament. Buckley moved to 2-0. In other game Thursday Ogallala topped Chadron 8-4. Gering will play Sidney tonight at 7:30. Sidney lost a first round game to Chadron Wednesday 13-3. In the first game tonight at 5:00 Alliance will tangle with Chadron. The Buckley Bombers topped Alliance Wednesday 12-8.

In Ainsworth Bayard is making noise at the Class C Area 1 Junior Tournament. They knocked off top seeded Creighton Thursday 10-7. That came on the heels of an opening round win over fourth seeded Bloomfield 9-5. Bayard will now tangle with either second seeded Crofton or third seeded Ainsworth Saturday with the championship game scheduled for Monday.