The final stages of the 4A state baseball tournament got underway on Monday with four exciting games at Salt Lake Community College’s Cate Field.
After the 2020 season was cancelled due to COIVD-19, this is the first time the Utah High School Activities Association’s new playoff format is in action with things such as RPI and best-of-three series being implemented.
The eight teams that won their best-of-three series late last week will play in a double-elimination tournament this week that will leave two final teams to compete in a best-of-three series over the weekend to determine the state champion.
Monday’s action started off with a battle that saw the Mountain Crest Mustangs take down the Stansbury Stallions 7-6. The Mustangs jumped out to an early lead after a five-run third inning, using various clutch at-bats from the bottom of the order. Braydon Schiess would bring in two more runs with a two-out single in the top half of the fourth inning to give his team a 7-0 lead.
Stansbury fought back though and entered the final inning down four runs and was able to get two runners on base before Mountain Crest brought in pitcher Lance Welch. A few batters later, the lead was down to just one and the Stallions still had two on with no outs.
Welch proceeded to get a big strikeout, and then with the help of his defense closed the game with a narrow victory.
“He has been one of our top pitchers for four years now and that is a situation he thrives in,” Mountain Crest coach Steve Hansen said of Welch. “He came in and did what he needed to do before we got that last ground ball out.”
After Bear River was the only team to pick up an upset win in Super Regionals, the Bears again picked up an impressive victory on Monday. This time they took down the top-seeded Desert Hills Thunder in eight innings after a back-and-forth game that saw three ties in the final three half-innings before extra frames.
The Bears jumped out to a 3-0 lead behind a great performance from pitcher Derek Dean. It was Dean’s first varsity start of the season and he took a no-hitter into the fifth inning.
Eventually the Thunder were able to score some runs, getting four across the plate in the sixth inning to take the lead heading into the final frame. Bear River bounced back with three of its own runs before Desert Hills tied the game in the bottom of the seventh off of a passed ball with two strikes and two outs.
Hunter Harrow made a diving catch in left field to stop the winning run from coming home to force extra innings.
Despite blowing two multi-run leads late, Bear River never lost its composure, and a few base hits and walks drawn helped it gain a couple of runs in the eighth inning.
The defense then once again stepped up to help pick up the win. After a controversial call at first base, Hunter Smoot made an outstanding catch playing shortstop and made the throw to first to end the game on a double play.
When asked about what helped his team win the game, coach Donald Hawes commented, “I thought our defense was phenomenal. We don’t get to that spot in the fifth inning or later in the game if we don’t play defense.”
Snow Canyon beat Dixie 7-6 with a walk-off single by Jackson Ence. Dixie had rallied back from a four-run deficit to tie the game in the sixth inning off of a Shea Anderson triple after the Warriors had jumped out to an early lead. That lead came in large part because of an Isaac Lyon at-bat in the second inning that brought in three runs.
Ridgeline pulled off the third upset of the day when it took down Pine View 3-1 in a pitcher’s duel in which Jaden Harris and Brock Roundy each threw a complete game while only allowing four hits.
Traton Staheli had an RBI in the first inning for the Panthers, but they wouldn’t score a run the rest of the night. The RiverHawks snuck two across in the fourth inning before adding an insurance run in the fifth on their way to the victory.
Monday’s contests, set up games between Bear River and Mountain Crest as well as Snow Canyon and Ridgeline on Tuesday night, while Stansbury, Desert Hills, Dixie and Pine View begin their quests through the one-loss bracket in the morning.
from Deseret News https://ift.tt/2RXT7nA
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