Royals beat Boise teams but fall to BK

The Mountain Home Royals had their win streak hit three before seeing it snapped at Bishop Kelly against the Barons.

Mountain Home 14

Nampa Braves 2

In a game that saw Nampa American Legion officials frantically calling around to find umpires when it became apparent that no umpires had been booked for their game with the Mountain Home Royals last Tuesday, in hindsight, they probably wished they had called it off and decided to count both games of a scheduled doubleheader in Mountain Home next month as conference games.

After an approximate 90-minute delay at the start of the game, Mountain Home came out hitting, as the first 10 batters reached base safely, and once the Mountain Home half of the first inning was over, it was Mountain Home with a 9-0 lead.

Royals pitcher Bret Young had a bit of a control problem in the bottom of the first, walking the first two batters he faced, but then got a clutch double play ball, and then struck out the next batter to get out of the inning with no further problems.

Mountain Home added two more off Nampa starter Jeff Denton in the second, before he settled down and held the Royals scoreless the last two innings he pitched.

The Royals got to Braves' reliever Teak O'Malley for three runs in the fifth, to go up 14-0.

A couple walks and a couple errors led to Nampa plating two runs in the bottom of the fifth, but the Royals won it 14-2 after five, the game stopped by the 10-run rule.

"Had to be one goofy day at the ball park," said Royals head coach Travis DeVore in radio comments after the game. "I was really worried about Bret Young being able to come out and pitch after having to sit around. He warmed up at quarter 'til five (4:45) and then had to do it an hour and a half later again. You saw what it did to their pitcher, so I was worried the same thing might happen to us, but I was really impressed with just how focused they were. You know, it's really easy when you set around like that, if you don't know if you're going to play or not. You can get unfocused, but our guys did a nice job getting over that. Brett threw well, and the guys hit the ball well."

Bret Young improved to 2-0 on the season, giving up just one hit, while striking out five and walking five. He also helped himself out at the plate, getting two hits and knocking in three runs.

Michael DesPres had two hits and Aaron Swartz had a two-run double. Jake Hiler had a two-run single, Sam Cisners had an RBI double, and Jeff Vogl singled in another run. Joe Poseley had a hit and two RBIs, Dillon Barresi had a hit and an RBI.

Boise Barons 12

Mountain Home 2

The Boise Barons were able to take advantage of Mountain Home pitching woes, while the Royals were not in the game that ended early in the fifth by the 10-run rule.

Tim Whitmarsh struggled some finding the plate, giving up seven runs in two innings of work.

Daniel Rau took over in the third inning, but also had problems finding the plate, and the Barons added three more runs to go up 10-2.

Mountain Home got to Barons' ace Josh Osich for a run in the first, and took advantage of his wildness to score another run in the second, and, trailing 3-2, had the tying run at third with just one out, but failed to get him home. Mountain Home managed just two hits off Osich, who struggled with his control as well, striking out seven and walking five. The two Royals hits came in the first inning.

The Royals' third pitcher of the night, Jeff Vogl got Boise out in order in the fourth, and got the first out of the fifth, but the Barons then scored two runs to end the game, 12-2.

"We struggled, and got a little taste of our own medicine tonight," said Coach DeVore. "We've been putting it to teams and 10-running them and clean up games early, and now we get to feel what that actually feels like. We started that first inning off putting a couple base hits together, and it look like things were going to go our way tonight, but we still have to improve and establish a little bit of consistency in our game."

Michael DesPres and Chris Rau had the only hits for Mountain Home, Rau's single knocked in a run.

The Royals have a busy week this week. They were home against Centennial on Monday night, traveled to Vallivue last (Tuesday) night, are at Meridian tonight (Wednesday), home against Kuna for two tomorrow (Thursday), and host Eagle for two on Saturday.

"I think the busy schedule is going to be good for us, actually," said Coach DeVore. "I think playing right now is what we need because some of the guys just need to be back out on the field seeing more and more live pitching, and it will be good for us to have a busy week.

"In hindsight, I wish this week would have been a little bit busier just because we really need to kind of get that sort of momentum and really feel like the boys of summer, which these guys are."