Royals win first two games at district

The Mountain Home Royals picked up wins over Caldwell and Kuna Saturday at the Area B Class A American Legion District baseball tourney at Wigle Field in Boise.

Mountain Home 8

Caldwell Bobcats 2

The Mountain Home Royals jumped out to a 7-1 lead after two innings in their Saturday morning opening game of the District Tournament. That was more than enough for Royals pitcher Chris Rau, who struck out five and scattered five hits in going the distance to improve to 8-0 on the season. He helped himself out at the plate with three hits, including an RBI double.

Cal Vivier and Bret Young both had two hits for the Royals, Vivier had a triple and an RBI, Young, a double and an RBI. Michael DesPres drove in two RBIs with a double, and Alex Hoffman and Tim Whitmarsh had RBI-singles. Joe Poseley had a double.

Mountain Home 15

Kuna Diamondbacks 5

(6 innings)

The Caldwell win put the Royals in a 2:15 p.m. game Saturday against the Kuna Diamondbacks, who had opened with a win over the Meridian Rangers on Friday.

Mountain Home got on the scoreboard in the first inning, Aaron Swartz taking advantage of a throwing error to score from third base. Kuna then took advantage of three walks by Bret Young in the top of the second, taking a 2-1 lead on a two-run single by Dustin Curtis. The Royals regained the lead in the bottom of the second, scoring four runs to take a 5-2 lead.

Kuna scored two unearned runs in the top of the third to pull within one, 5-4, but the Royals scored four more in both the third and fourth innings to pull away. Chris Rau's single in the bottom of the sixth inning scored Aaron Swartz to end the game, 15-5, by the 10-run rule.

Aaron Swartz had three hits, including two off-the-wall doubles, drove in three runs and scored four runs to lead the Royals. Cal Vivier, Chris Rau, Michael DesPres, Bret Young and Jake Hiler each had two hits, Vivier drove in three runs, Rau, two, and DesPres and Hiler each had one RBI, DesPres had a double and a triple.

Alex Hoffman, Steven Budine and Tim Whitmarsh also had RBIs.

Bret Young improved to 6-1 on the season, throwing six innings, allowing five runs on eight hits, with just three of the runs earned.

The Kuna win put Mountain Home in the quarter-finals against the Treasure Valley Stars Monday evening. A win there will put the Royals in the semi-finals and qualify them for state, which is Aug. 2-7 in Coeur d'Alene.