Royals take third at tournament

The Mountain Home Royals battled back from a six-run deficit to beat the Boise Senators to take third place in the Pepsi Challenge, but that would be the only win of the week, as the Royals dropped their next three games once returning to regular season play.

Mountain Home 7

Boise Senators 6

The Mountain Home Royals downed the Boise Senators Monday to place third at the Pepsi Challenge American Legion Baseball Tourney at Capital High School in Boise.

The Royals found themselves down 6-0 after four innings, but scored once in the fifth, and three times in the sixth and seventh to win a come-from-behind 7-6 contest and third place in the tourney.

"The guys really battled back and got the win," said Royals head coach and manager Travis DeVore. "I didn't really know how they'd do, playing their ninth game in five days, but they battled back and went into the bottom of the seventh down, 6-4, and got the bases loaded with no outs, and Joe Poseley got a hit to knock in two runs, and we managed to score again and get the win."

Aaron Swartz and Sam Cisners both had two hits, and Joe Poseley a two-run single. Daniel Rau and Jake Hiler both had a hit and RBI, and Brian Fields and Chris Rau also had hits.

Daniel Rau came on in relief of Aaron Swartz, and gave up just one run in 3 2/3 innings. He had seven strikeouts, four walks and a hit batter and improved to 2-0 on the season.

Centennial Cannons 10

Mountain Home 0

Even with a rare night off on Tuesday, the Mountain Home Royals showed the effects of playing nine games in a week, losing to the Cannons at Centennial last Wednesday night, 10-0 in five innings.

With several Royals out nursing hurts and pains, their bats were quiet, managing just three hits off Centennial's Chad Yeggy.

The loss was not only the first time all season the Royals had been 10-runned, it was the first time they had been shut out all season.

"My one main concern going into the game was whether the intensity was going to be up, coming off the tournament and coming back to a league game," said Coach DeVore. "Baseball is a game of consistency, where the teams that are successful, they don't think about what the game means for that day, or whatever, they just know that every day you've got to come out here and play and be excited that you've got the opportunity to play, and obviously, we didn't have that today. There were some bad breaks in the game and there were some other issues, but ultimately, it was just that we looked tired and worn out and we looked like we were satisfied just to get through the game and chalk it up on our schedule and move on, but we'll learn from it."

Jeff Vogl, Brett Young and Mike Anderson had the Mountain Home hits, Vogl's was a double.

Young suffered the loss, giving up 10 runs (seven of them earned runs) on seven hits in less than three innings. He is now 4-2 on the season.

Boise Senators 7, 11

Mountain Home 2, 8

The Royals faced the Boise Senators again Saturday in a doubleheader at Mountain Home.

With Bret Young, Michael DesPres and Aaron Swartz in Arizona for a baseball camp, the Royals lacked some offensive fire power in falling to the Senators both games.

In the first game, the Royals failed to take advantage of Bryant Biddinger's first inning wildness as he walked two and hit a batter, and gave up a hit, but still the Royals went scoreless, leaving the bases loaded as the inning ended. Biddinger got stronger as the game progressed, allowing just three more hits while striking out 11 Royals in the game, as the Senators won, 7-2.

Brian Fields struck out six, walked four and hit three batters, and gave up seven runs on nine hits to suffer the loss and fall to 3-2 on the season. Fields had one of the four hits off Biddinger. Sam Cisners, Jake Hiler and Joe Poseley had the others.

In the second game, the Senators scored five runs in the second and fifth innings to build up an 11-2 lead, but the Royals battled back to make a game of it.

The Royals got three runs in the fifth, and three more in the seventh to make it 11-8, and had the tying run at the plate when the ballgame ended.

Sam Cisners had two doubles and two RBIs in the second game. Brian Fields had a two-run double, Tim Whitmarsh had an RBI double, Dillon Barresi had an RBI single, and Daniel Rau also had a hit. David Zito suffered the loss, his first against three wins, as he was relieved in the five-run fifth. Chris Rau pitched the fifth, and gave up a couple runs on a two hits, and Jeff Vogl came on and pitched two scoreless innings to close it out.

"I think when you have a few kids missing, it's more of an emotional or mental thing than a physical thing to come out here and realize that hey, we got to get her done," said Coach DeVore, after the doubleheader.

"But we played probably some of our best defense that we've play all year, which is kind of ironic, because I think that's been our Achilles heel this year, and that's the one thing that they really stepped up.

"Pitching was pretty good -- not great, but pretty good -- and hitting, we had some big days from certain guys, and then some obvious holes in our lineup, and that was the difference in the game.

"Both teams had about the same amount of runners on base, but we didn't have the key base hits when we needed them, other than Sam Cisners had one of his best days at the plate that he's had, he hit the ball real well."

The Royals took a 21-8 overall record, and 12-7 league mark to Kuna yesterday (Tuesday).

They are home against Emmett tonight (Wednesday) for a 7:00 p.m. game, and host Middleton for two tomorrow (Thursday) starting at 5 p.m.

"We've got a bit of losing streak here, first one of the year, three games in a row, so we've got to snap that, and hopefully we can come out and get after it. We've got four games this week, and they all mean something to our conference record, so no time to dwell on it, we've just got to come back and get after it."