Royals spilt games, bow out at district

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

The Mountain Home Royals started strong in the Area B Class A American Legion Baseball Tournament last week, winning their first two but then losing two straight to be eliminated from the tournament.

Mountain Home 8

Caldwell Bobcats 4

The Mountain Home Royals opened the Area B Class A American Legion baseball tourney with an 8-4 win over the Caldwell Bobcats last Wednesday at Storey Park in Meridian.

The Royals scored one run in the first inning and added three more in the third to take a 4-0 lead.

Royals starting pitcher Brian Fields was cruising along with a one-hitter going into the sixth inning. He got the first batter out on a ground-out.

Then things started falling apart.

"We were actually a little worried about him (Fields) the entire game," said Mountain Home Royals head coach Travis DeVore in comments after the ball game.

"Surprisingly, that was his best game he's thrown up until the sixth inning, but he had a little cut on his finger (on his throwing hand) going into the game, and he had it bandaged up and he was worried about it, and you could tell when you've got little things like that, things can go, and go in a hurry, and that's what happened there."

Fields hit the next batter, then walked a batter. Another hit batter loaded the bases. Two more hit batters brought in two runs, and the Royals' lead was now 4-2.

Coach DeVore then brought Michael DesPres in to pitch, and he struck out the next batter, and there were two out.

An error scored another run, and a wild pitch scored another, and it was 4-4.

DesPres struck out the next batter to end the inning, but the Royals' four-run lead was gone and the game was tied.

The Royals went to work in the bottom of the sixth against Caldwell reliever Claudio Garcia.

Garcia had replaced Bobcat starter Brad Hahn in the third, and had retired seven batters in a row heading into the Royals' half of the sixth. Daniel Rau reached base by getting hit by a pitch, and Joe Poseley walked. Tim Whitmarsh reached safely on a bunt, when Garcia first made sure Rau was not coming home from third. The bases were full with no one out.

Aaron Swartz then singled in Rau to put the Royals back in the lead. A fielding error on Dillon Barresi's grounder allowed two more runs to score, and Bret Young's sacrifice fly scored another, as Mountain Home again had a four run lead, 8-4.

Michael Despres set the Bobcats down in the seventh without a run, as Mountain Home came away with an 8-4 win.

"District and state tournament is the only time of year when you don't mind winning ugly because winning is what matters at this point," said Coach DeVore.

"When you don't have your sticks, if you can get a kid to come out and throw as well as Brian did, or as well as Michael did there to close the game out, that's the difference for us right there -- pitching, and it has been quite a bit through out the season."

Michael DesPres picked up the win to improve to 2-3 on the season. He struck out four, walked one and hit one in his inning and two-thirds of work. Brian Fields struck out seven, walked three and hit four, giving up just one hit, a bloop single to start the ball game.

Aaron Swartz had two hits and an RBI for Mountain Home. Joe Poseley had a two-run single, Michael DesPres had a double, Dillon Barresi, Brian Fields and Tim Whitmarsh also had hits, and Bret Young had an RBI.

Mountain Home 11

Boise Seminoles 3

The Royals overcame a three-run deficit to come back and defeat the Boise Seminoles last Thursday in second round action at the Area B Class A American Legion baseball tourney at Storey Park in Meridian.

The 14th seeded Seminoles, who had pulled off the first major upset of the tourney on Wednesday, downing number three seed Emmett, 10-3, were hoping to continue their Cinderella run, and they started strong, taking advantage of Royals' errors to score two unearned runs in the first inning, and one more in the second to take a 3-0 lead.

The Royals took advantage of five walks in a row by Boise starter Kyle Knutsen to score three in the bottom of the second to tie the game at 3-3.

The Seminoles reliever Tom Broderick walked the bases loaded in the Royals' third inning, and Jake Hiler, who had knocked in one run with a single in the second inning, plated two more with a single in the third, as the Royals led, 5-3.

Mountain Home added six more runs in the fourth inning to increase their lead to 11-3.

Royals pitcher Bret Young went the distance, scattering five hits while striking out six, hitting a batter and walking one to improve to 6-2 on the season.

Young also tripled off the right field wall, knocking in a run.

Jake Hiler had two hits and three RBIs, Aaron Swartz had two hits and two RBIs. Brian Fields, David Zito and Tim Whitmarsh also had hits, and Michael DesPres had an RBI.

Coach DeVore was proud of the way his team battled back from the early deficit to take the lead, and credited Royals pitcher Bret Young with keeping his focus despite numerous errors by the Royals.

"A lot of that goes to Bret Young, who threw a heck of a game for us. He kept their kids off balance when we didn't really play defense behind him, so a lot of credit for that win goes to Bret for being able to be level headed in a game that wasn't very pretty on our part.

"Ultimately, though, we're playing post season ball now, and you don't always get the prettiest games in the post season on any level, so you take the wins any way they come and we'll certainly take that one."

Boise Senators 8

Mountain Home 6

In a game that bordered on the bizarre, that had a number of twists and sidelights, the Mountain Home Royals saw their hopes of a District Championship detoured by the Boise Senators 8-6 Friday afternoon at Storey Park in Meridian.

In the top of the first inning, the first seven batters reached safely against Senator Saul Meza. By the time the inning was over, the Royals had scored five runs to take an early 5-0 lead as the Senators came up to bat.

The Senators scored two runs in the bottom half of the inning, on a two-run triple by Travis O'Brien, the second run coming on a throw at the plate when Boise's Sam Evanovich leveled Royals catcher Joe Poseley, an elbow to the head resulting in a cut that took Poseley out of the ball game and off to get stitches.

A double by Chris Rau scored a run in the top of the second, as the Royals increased their lead to 6-2. The score stayed at 6-2 until the Senators struck for two more runs in the bottom of the fourth.

In the top of the fifth, the Royals had a rally going when Mike Anderson was tagged out at the plate. He was also ejected from the game for trying to bull over Boise catcher Sam Evanovich, who had blocked the plate (the same Sam Evanovich who had elbowed Joe Poseley at the plate in the first inning and who was not thrown out of the game).

Anderson was playing second base, and the regular second baseman, Dillon Barresi, did not start because he had had a mole removed from his back.

Coach DeVore ended up moving Aaron Swartz from the outfield to play second base the rest of the game.

The score remained 6-4, Royals, heading into the bottom of the sixth inning.

Michael DesPres struck out Saul Meza to start the Senators' sixth. Clay Chivers then singled, and Riley Bevill was hit by a pitch. Joey Hall, who had taken over on the mound for Meza in the fifth, then doubled in Chivers and Bevill to tie the game at 6-6.

Alex Barbee followed with a single, and a sacrifice fly by Eddy Mockemhaupt scored Hall with the go-ahead run, and Andrew Barbee doubled in Alex Barbee to score another run.

DesPres got Sam Evanovich to ground out to third to end the inning, but the Senators had the lead, 8-6, with the Royals going to their final at bat.

In the Royals seventh inning, Tim Whitmarsh looked at called strike three and Jake Hiler flew out and there were two down.

Aaron Swartz drew a walk, and Brian Fields and Bret Young both singled, loading the bases for Michael DesPres.

DesPres, who had two hits and an RBI already lined the ball hard right at the third baseman, Riley Bevill, who caught it to end the inning and preserve the Senators' win.

Royals head coach Travis DeVore said it was a tough one to lose."I'm going to be burned by this loss for a little while, but like I told the kids after the game, you've just got to come back out and let it burn until midnight tonight, and then we've got to quickly get over it, because somebody still needs to come out of that losers' bracket and qualify for state.

"Obviously, there's going to be a lot of things that kids individually and as a team are going to struggle to swallow their pride and get past it in a hurry, but that's what baseball is, one team is going to come out of here feeling sorry for themselves, and unfortunately, it's us, but we have a lot of pitching left and I have the confidence in the kids that we can come back and get after it tomorrow against Emmett."

Brian Fields had four hits in the game and scored two runs. Bret Young had two hits, including a triple and drove in two runs. Michael DesPres had two hits and an RBI, Chris Rau had an RBI double, Joe Poseley an RBI single, and Aaron Swartz, David Zito, Daniel Rau and Tim Whitmarsh also had hits.

Michael DesPres suffered the loss to fall to 2-4. He struck out six, hit three and walked two.

Emmett Blue Devils 8

Mountain Home 2

The Mountain Home Royals and Emmett Blue Devils went into Saturday's game at Storey Park knowing the season was going to end for one of them, and neither wanting it to be them.

David Zito of the Royals and Chris Elliott of Emmett were involved in a good pitching duel.

The Royals put together two hits in the second inning to score a run.

Brian Fields led off the inning with a single, and came home on Daniel Rau's two-out double to the left field fence.

That was the scoring until the fourth, when Emmett manufactured three runs on just one hit, that a lead-off single by Matt Munson.

The Blue Devils blew the game open with five straight hits in the sixth inning, three off David Zito and two off Brian Fields, who came in and eventually retired Emmett, but not before five runs scored to make it 8-1, Emmett.

The Royals managed to score one run in the top of the seventh, but the rally fell short, and Emmett won, 8-2, to keep their season alive, and end the season for the Royals.

Coach DeVore thought the sixth inning was the definite difference in the game.

"I can't explain it, but at the high school and the Legion level, when you get to the post season, just really bizarre things happen, things that you don't see during the regular season, and today was certainly no exception.

"I warned the kids at the beginning of the tournament that we can't let those things get in our heads, because it's going to happen, and we saw it quite a few times this tournament where we had calls that we normally wouldn't see during the regular season happening, and lot of it is just because so much is on the line and everyone realizes it, but the bottom line is, throughout the entire tournament, we had chances to get runs across, and that's really what we're going to have to focus back on.

"Our pitchers all pitched well enough for us to win those ball games, but when we had runners in scoring position we weren't always executing, and, ultimately, that ends up being what gets you games and doesn't get you games, getting that one hit that gets the run across and puts the pressure back on the other team."

Bret Young collected two hits for the Royals,Daniel Rau had an RBI double and Michael DesPres an RBI single. Aaron Swartz, Dillon Barresi and Brian Fields also had hits.

David Zito suffered the loss to finish the season 5-2.

The season comes to a close for the Royals, who finished 30-14 overall.

Coach DeVore hopes his players can look back on the season noting the positives, and not the two losses that brought it to a close.

"That's what I tried to tell them. There are just so many negative aspects to our existence you can focus on, and certainly, athletics always contributes to that, because these guys will remember today's game for the rest of their lives, and that's one thing that I don't want them to focus on when they walk away from the season.

"We were five outs away from going to state, and we had a lot of high points to this season and strung together a lot of wins and these kids have a lot to be proud of. So, ultimately, they can go home and kind of be soured for the weekend, and then we're going to have their team banquet on Monday, and I hope that they are able to relax and let some of that go, because, very few teams, when it comes down to it, get to feel good when the season ends, and usually it amounts to about one or two, and they're usually playing in the state championship, so if we just focus on the hardships that we kind of faced this last week, then we won't look at how great the season actually was.

"I told the kids after the game, that this is just a very fun group. Sam (Cisners) and Dillon (Barresi) coming back and playing again after being away from the game for a year, and getting to coach Brian (Fields) his last summer of baseball, and he's been with the Royals forever, there's just too many positives to focus on, and as much as it does sting to have the season over and end on this kind of note, I also want the kids to be able to be proud of what they did this year, because they did a lot of positive things."

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