Tigers fall to BK, but qualify for state

The Mountain Home Tigers were overcome by heat Friday night in the District III 4A Baseball Tournament Championship, losing to the Knights, 9-0 at Bishop Kelly.

The heat was not from the weather, which was pleasant and might have reached 80, but from Bishop Kelly's pitching, where the speed definitely reached 90, as in miles per hour fastballs.

Kyle Wuestenfeld and Josh Osich, both lefties, combined on a one-hit shutout of the Tigers, Mountain Home's lone hit coming on a two-out double by Dave Anderson in the sixth inning.

The two combined for 16 strikeouts, with Wuestenfeld getting nine, Osich, who has been clocked at over 90 mph, had seven. Wuestenfeld also had some wildness, walking four and hitting three batters in four innings, and the Tigers left seven runners on base through the first four innings, but failed to get any past second base.

Tiger pitching ace Michael DesPres started strong, striking out the side in the first inning, and gave up just four hits in four innings, but three of them came after costly errors that led to runs, with three of the four runs DesPres gave up being unearned.

The Tiger senior, who finished 6-2 on the season, struck out five and walked just one in four innings. Jeff Vogl gave up two runs in the fifth inning, and Bret Young surrendered three -- just one earned -- in the sixth.

"Obviously, I'm disappointed in a lot of aspects of the game," said Tiger baseball coach Travis DeVore in radio comments after the game. "But it isn't the end of the season, and we've just got to learn from and come back out and work hard for three practices and get ready to go again."

The Tigers open state 4A tourney play at 1 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon against the Sandpoint Bulldogs.

Coach DeVore is optimistic going against the Bulldogs.

"They've played about 500 ball up there, and it's always unpredictable with the teams of the north because their conference is so small and they play such a weird non-conference schedule.

"We know they're a scrappy team and we faced them two years ago at the state tournament in the third-place game.

"I feel like we have a chance to win every time we go out there, no matter who we face. Obviously, today (Friday against Bishop Kelly) wasn't our 'A' game, but like I told the kids, it starts over again and we've got to learn from what we did wrong again today and learn and refocus."

First-round action Thursday at the 4A State Tournament at Nampa's Rodeo Park has Madison facing Minico at 10 a.m., Mountain Home meeting Sandpoint at 1 p.m., Preston taking on Hillcrest at 4 p.m., and Bishop Kelly meeting Post Falls at 7 p.m.