By CONOR NICHOLL

cnicholl@dailynews.net

Before the start of the annual Wild West Fest tournament, Hays Legion baseball coach Mike Jenner challenged his inconsistent team to raise "their intensity level" and "clean it up."

"They are athletes, they are good ballplayers," Jenner said. "They know they can do it. It's just a matter of getting out there and doing it."

The Eagles delivered two wins Friday in pool play. Coupled with a win in Game 2 of its doubleheader against Great Bend on Monday, Hays stretched its winning streak to a season-high three games.

"We just have to come out and we just have to start playing like this all the time," Jenner said. "If we do this, we are going to be back at state, and hopefully win state."

On Friday morning, Matt Malott (3-2) threw a complete game shutout in a 5-0 victory against Minnesota-Excelsior. About 10 hours later, Hays beat the Colorado Bears 2-1 in eight innings on a walk-off RBI single by Travis Budke in the bottom of the eighth inning. Budke, one of two additions to the Hays roster in the past week, was 1-for-9 before the hit.

"It's kind of tough to get back into it," Budke said.

In the Great Bend tournament earlier this summer, Colorado (5-15) run-ruled Hays 16-3.

"I just told them, 'Guys, you owe them one,' " Jenner said. "They are not a run-rule better than us. They are a good ball club. Their pitcher threw well. We had some chances early, couldn't get some runners across, but we kept ourselves with a chance to win the game, and that is what you have to do. You just have to give yourself a chance. We did that and we came out on top."

Hays, which finished tied for fifth in the Class AAA state tournament last summer, improved to 11-12-1 and 2-0 in the tourney going into Saturday's game against Colby. Last year, the Eagles finished 2-3 in the tournament, good for fourth place.

In Hays' tourney opener, Malott delivered his second straight strong start when he scattered five hits against five strikeouts and nine ground ball outs in throwing a complete game. The Eagles scored one run in the third and two in the third and two more in the fourth.

Logan Downing, who worked six innings versus Great Bend on Monday, came back on three days' rest and worked seven strong innings against Colorado.

Downing, throwing from a three-quarters delivery, had just one strikeout but nine ground ball outs. He also picked off three batters, including Case Maxey twice. In his third plate appearance, Maxey reached on an error and then was thrown out trying to steal. Downing picked off one runner in limited action on the mound this spring for Hays High School.

"He just varies his moves," Jenner said. "He is good at it, all of the Hays High pitchers are good at it. Jesse Hart has picked off four or five this summer. (Hays High pitching coach) Keith Harper does a good job with them working on that, and a lot of schools don't do that. They don't spend a lot of time. Keith does a great job with his pitchers."

Hays took a 1-0 lead in the third on an RBI infield single from Jay Sanders. Colorado tied the score in the fourth on back-to-back doubles. After the bottom of the seventh, the game was suspended at 8:53 p.m. because of lightning and resumed about 25 minutes later. Downing was removed for Kelton Rule (3-0), who pitched the eighth for the win.

"He has got a lot of confidence in himself, I've got confidence in him," Jenner said. "That's good. If we hadn't such a long delay, I probably would have run him back out there, but when we had to sit that long, he had already thrown about 100 pitches, and that was enough."

Rule worked a 1-2-3 inning before Hays won the game in the bottom of the eighth. With one out, Downing reached on an error when Colorado shortstop Alex Mendibles bobbled the ball. After a ground out, Budke hit the first pitch up the middle for a game-winning single against losing pitcher Brandon Beatch.

"We looked like a whole different team the last two games." Jenner said. "This is the way we are capable of playing all the time."