Tigers sweep Middleton to keep win streak alive as district nears

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Mountain Home Tigers beat Middleton twice last week in conference baseball to increase their current win streak to six.

Mtn. Home 7

Middleton 6

Alex Hoffman's double knocked in Ricky Lee with what proved to be the winning run in the top of the seventh inning at Middleton Thursday night as the Tigers took a 7-6 conference win over the Vikings.

Lee had led off the inning with a triple. Hoffman's three hits on the night also included a home run as he had three RBIs.

"It was a back-and-forth sort of game," said Tiger baseball coach Travis DeVore of the win. "I felt like we were in control of it most of the game, but we let Middleton stick around. Chris Rau pitched well, and then with no outs and runners on second and third, Jake Hiler came in in the fifth inning and was able to get three outs for us, getting a strikeout and getting a guy to roll into a double play that preserved the tie, and then Ricky Lee comes up with a big triple to lead off the seventh inning, and Alex Hoffman, who had a great game all around, gets an RBI double in the seventh to push the winning run across after already hitting a home run in the first and getting another hit in the game as well.

"It was a monster game for Alex, and the boys played well, it was just one of those games where Middleton was battling the whole time, and luckily we stepped up and got the win, because the game certainly could have gone either way."

Besides the hits by Hoffman and Lee, Jordan Cisna had a double and two RBIs, and Ricky Baker had a hit and two RBIs. Chris Rau and Jake Hiler also had hits. Hiler pitched three shutout winnings to get the win, his sixth against three losses.

Tigers 11

Vikings 1

The Tigers took advantage of eight walks, four hit batters and eight hits, including an inside-the-park grand slam home run by Alex Hoffman to beat Middleton 11-1 in six innings.

Jordan Cisna had two hit including a double and drove in three runs, and Chris Rau had two, one of them a double, and drove in two runs. Cal Vivier had an RBI double, Ricky Lee had a triple, Eric Christiansen had a hit and Jake Hiler and Zane Bundy both had an RBI.

"I'm real proud of the boys' efforts tonight. They played all aspects of the game really well, and especially, we've mixed up the lineup the last couple days trying to give everyone a start as we go into the final week of play. Alex Hoffman continues to hit the ball extremely well for us, Zane Bundy's getting on base a ton, which ends up meaning you're scoring a lot of runs for us."

Gabe Anderson picked up the win to improve to 3-1 on the season.

He pitched five innings and allowed just four hits while striking out four. Eric Christiansen pitched a scoreless and hitless sixth for the Tigers.

"Gabe Anderson threw another great ball game for us, and it's good to actually get Eric another inning of relief, too," said coach DeVore.

"Hopefully we can get him another couple innings against Nampa, too, because when you get into that post-season play, you're certainly relying on your bull pen, and our starting pitching is so good that sometimes we don't develop it (bull pen pitching) in the high school season as well as we should, and this year's definitely been that way.

The Tigers improved to 8-4 in conference and 13-8 overall and have moved into third place in the conference standings. Mountain Home hosted Nampa Tuesday for Senior Night and close out its regular season schedule this afternoon at Nampa's Rodeo Park.

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