Tiger nine go two and out at state tournament

The Mountain Home Tigers saw their baseball season come to a close at the 4A State Baseball Tournament in two games.

Hillcrest 2

Tigers 1

The Tigers faced the Hillcrest Knights in the first round of the state tourney at Bishop Kelly Thursday afternoon and lost a close one 2-1.

Hillcrest scored an unearned run in the third to take a 1-0 lead. The Tigers tied the game at 1-1 in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Brock Morris.

The Knights regained the lead on the sixth inning on another unearned run, but Mountain Home was unable to come back, dropping a 2-1 contest.

Ricky Baker had two hits against Hillcrest, Ricky Lee, Eric Christiansen and Tom Hennessey also had hits.

Eric Christiansen suffered the loss, despite not giving up an earned run. He scattered five hits, and struck out five.

"Eric Christiansen threw a great game for us," said Tiger head baseball coach Travis DeVore. "We certainly had our chances and had a rough second inning where we had the bases loaded and no outs and ended up finishing it on a line-drive double play, where, if the ball had gone through, it's a whole different ball game. The kids were definitely playing hard, and those are emotionally tough games to lose after Eric giving us a chance, but Hillcrest's a tough team every year at state, and they showed it again this year."

Nampa 4

Tigers 1

The Hillcrest loss put the Tigers in the consolation bracket against conference foe Nampa, which had lost its state opener to Minico. A three-run sixth inning put the Bulldogs up 4-0, and they held on to win 4-1.

The Tigers out hit the Bulldogs, 7-6, but once again committed four errors. Logan Monasterio had two hits for the Tigers, Ricky Lee, Ricky Baker, Eric Christiansen, Anthony Castillo and Trevor Woodruff also had hits, Woodruff had a double and knocked in the Tigers only run. Woodruff went the distance on the mound, striking out seven batters while giving up six hits.

"I think it's tough the way that state tournament is bracketed, where you're basically playing for that fifth place game and it's sometimes hard to get kids fired up after an emotional loss and an emotional day previously," said Coach DeVore. "We had our chances in that game as well. Certainly Trevor played an outstanding game for us, threw well and hit the ball well for us as well, but it just wasn't our day. After playing well against Nampa all year we just didn't have it in us to finish the season out on a win.

"I'm proud of the boys. They put a big run together at the end of the season to capture the district title and I certainly felt like we had a chance to win a state title, but things just didn't go our way that week."

The Tigers finished the season as district champions, and had an 13-18 overall record.

DeVore noted he will be losing a good bunch of seniors to graduation.

"All seven of them certainly sold out to baseball this year, and about midway through the season we felt the momentum change in the direction of our season. That's a total credit to those guys, because they certainly didn't want their season to end, and it was an emotional end to our season for sure, because those guys have put so much effort in it, and I wish all of them the best of luck.

"They definitely put a lot of work into the second half of the season to capture a district title."

DeVore is optimistic about the future of Tiger baseball with the nucleus he will have coming back.

"It's huge, especially when you look at pitching and have guys getting post-season starts, having Eric and Trevor throw games in the state and district tournaments, and having them throw as well as they did down the stretch.

"That certainly means we're going to have a shot to win a lot of ball games next year, and we're going to have some great kids come up.

"We've got to replace Ricky Lee in the middle in center field, he's been a three-year starter for us, and Ricky Baker at catcher. Those guys have put together great careers for us, and you've got seniors starting in the rest of the outfield, and Logan Monaterio helping out at first base, it's going to be tough to replace all those guys, but there's a good nucleus of kids coming back."