Royals' fielding errors end season at district tourney

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

What has been the Achilles heel of the Mountain Home Royals 2009 American Legion baseball season has been defensive fielding errors, cost them dearly, ending their run at the district tournament.

Last Tuesday morning's consolation game of the Area B Class A American Legion Eastern Division Tournament against the Mountain View Toros saw the Royals commit six errors in the game, including three in the fourth inning when Mountain View scored five runs on their way to a 6-4 win over the Royals.

The Royals got on the scoreboard first, with Ricky Lee tripling to lead off the third, and Jake Hennessey's double bringing Lee home.

Hennessey would eventually score on a wild pitch to make it 2-0 Royals.

It stayed 2-0, Royals, until the bottom of the fourth, when the Toros took advantage of three errors to plate five runs to go up 5-2.

Mountain Home managed single runs in the fifth and sixth to cut the deficit to one, 5-4, but two more errors with two out in the bottom of the sixth helped the Toros plate an insurance run to make it 6-4.

The Royals went down quietly against the Mountain View reliever in the seventh for a 6-4 final.

Jake Hennessey, John McCabe and J.T Cristobal each had doubles for the Royals against Mountain View. Hennessey and Cristobal had RBIs. Skyler Podesik, Ricky Lee and Tom Hennessey also had hits. Podesik had an RBI.

Eric Christiansen suffered the loss, despite not giving up an earned run. He dropped to 7-2 on the season.

The loss, which dropped the Royals to 21-14 overall, eliminated them the district tournament, ending their season.

Royals head coach Mark Cotton agreed any loss is tough, but especially so when it ends the season.

"It's always tough, especially when you go into your season and you set the high goals and you have the high expectations, and I know the kids had them, and I know we had them as a coaching staff, and when you don't live up to those expectations, it always makes you pretty sore.

"I think we played really good baseball down the stretch here. The thing that's totally plagued our team is the errors, and all or most of those runs today were unearned, and when you can't play defense, it doesn't matter how good you pitch it or how good you hit it. If you're going to give up runs like that, you're going to be in trouble.

"I think we learned a lot of lessons this year. We're a younger team, and hopefully, they'll come back next year with a year more of experience, and they can apply what they've learned this year to next year, and have a better season than we did this year."

With just Ricky Lee, Ricky Baker and Chris Maholick not coming back, Coach Cotton sees the future of the program very bright.

"We've had four ninth graders playing for us, an eighth grader, and obviously one will be a freshman next year and the rest sophomores, and then we have that huge junior class that will be seniors, so we have a lot to be optimistic about.

"Obviously, losing Chris Maholick and Ricky Lee (and Ricky Baker), we'll miss those guys, and we appreciate all the work they've put in. It's always sad to see those guys go when you've had them for four years."

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