Tigers open 2010 softball season with two victories

The Mountain Home Tigers opened the 2010 baseball season by winning two of three games last week.

Mountain Home 12, Kuna 1 (5 innings)

The Mountain Home Tigers jumped on Kuna for seven runs in the second inning on their way to a 12-1 five-inning win over the Kuna Kavemen last Tuesday night at Tiger Field in Mountain Home.

The Tigers pounded out 12 hits in the game. Tom Hennessey, Trevor Woodruff, Skyler Podesek and Jon McCabe each had two hits. Hennessey and Woodruff both had three RBIs and Podesek had two. Eric Christiansen had a triple and two RBIs. Brock Morris, Jake Hennessey and David Bitrick also had hits. Bitrick had an RBI, as did Anthony Castillo.

Tom Hennessey pitched four innings for the win, limiting the Kavemen to just one hit and one unearned run. Devan Wilkinson pitched a scoreless inning of relief.

"I'm really proud of the overall effort," said Tiger baseball Coach Travis DeVore after the game. "The first-game jitters, we saw that in our pre-game for sure, we didn't look sharp coming out, but that didn't affect our mentality in the game.

"I was impressed with our hitters.They were aggressive up there. Our defense looked sharp for the most part, and Tom Hennessey and Devan Wilkinson did what they had to do for the first time out, and that's throw strikes, work ahead and give your defense the chance to play behind you, so I've got nothing but enthusiasm at this point."

Skyview 3, Mountain Home 2

The Tigers opened their conference season Thursday at Skyview against the Hawks, coming up on the short end of a 3-2 contest.

A two-out wind-aided error opened the door for three runs for Skyview in the second inning, and it proved to be enough for Hawk pitcher David Nicodemus, who gave up single runs in the fifth and sixth innings but struck out the side in the seventh to get the win.

The Tigers outhit Skyview 8-4 but could only get two runs across the plate. David Bitrick had an RBI triple, Anthony Castillo had an RBI single and Brock Morris, Tom Hennessey, Eric Christiansen, Trevor Woodruff, Skyler Podesek and Alex Rodriguez also had hits.

Trevor Woodruff, who suffered the loss, gave up just three hits in four innings and struck out four. Jon McCabe pitched two scoreless innings of relief, striking out three.

"Hats off to Nicodemus," said Coach DeVore after the game. "He showed why he's a senior and returning varsity pitcher. He kept our hitters off balance.

"We outhit them, and our pitchers did a great job, too, but in baseball, you've got to get some luck going your way and you can't make some of the mistakes we made, too. There were some obvious early season kind of things with the game speed. Our fundamentals were there, but the speed of the game was still a little bit behind, but it was a good game."

Mountain Home 7, Skyview 1

The Tigers faced Skyview at Mountain Home on Friday and came out on top of a 7-1 conference contest.

Alex Rodriguez led off the second inning with a double and came home on a single by Brock Morris to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead.

After Skyview tied the game with a run in the top of the fifth, the Tigers scored three runs in the bottom half of the inning on a hit batter, three walks and an RBI-single by Tom Hennessey.

The Tigers added three more runs in the sixth to put the game out of reach, 7-1.

Brock Morris had three hits and two RBIs for the Tigers. Skyler Podesek, Tom Hennessey and Alex Rodriguez had hits and RBIs, David Bitrick had his second triple of the season and Trevor Woodruff also had a hit.

Eric Christiansen went the distance for the win, striking out ten batters and scattering five hits.

"I'm really proud of how our pitchers are throwing right now," said Coach DeVore after the game. "It just seems like every guy we put there so far, they're locating, they're working ahead. Eric did a great job tonight, and we know he's going to give us a chance to win every time he goes out there.

"We were focused at times, and maybe a little bit too relaxed at time, and I'm not going to be satisfied until I feel like we're reaching our potential.

"It's a nice win. We needed the split with Skyview to start our conference games, but there's still a lot to improve for sure."

The Tigers hosted Buhl in a non-conference game Tuesday and hit the road to compete at the Buck's Bag Tournament from Thursday to Saturday.