Tigers sweep double header, drop series to Knights

The Mountain Home Tigers won two and lost two last week in baseball action, sweeping a doubleheader at Canyon Ridge High School in Twin Falls and losing the conference series with Bishop Kelly.

Tigers 16, 16, River Hawks 0, 3

The Tigers traveled to Twin Falls on April 6 for a non-conference doubleheader against the Canyon Ridge River Hawks, pounding out 37 hits and scoring 32 runs in a doubleheader sweep.

Tom Hennessey and Jon McCabe combined on a three-hit shutout in the 16-0 five-inning first game.

Brock Morris had four hits in the first game. Eric Christiansen, Skyler Podesek, Anthony Castillo and Kevin Anderson each had three hits. Christiansen and Castillo both had two RBIs and Anderson had a triple and an RBI.

David Bitrick had two hits and two RBIs. Jake Hennessey, Devan Wilkinson and Trevor Woodruff also had hits and an RBI.

In the second game, Alex Rodriguez pitched a five-inning complete game, striking out six.

Jon McCabe had three hits, including a double, and drove in five runs. Brock Morris had three hits, Tom Hennessey and Alex Rodriguez each had two hits and and an RBI, and Rodriguez had a double and a triple. David Bitrick, Devan Wilkinson, Eric Christiansen and Anthony Castillo also had hits. Wilkinson and Christiansen had RBIs and Jake Hennessey also knocked in a run.

"They are certainly a team that's going to have a lot of building to do in their future just because they're a new high school," said Coach DeVore of the sweep. "It was a good chance for us to mix up the lineup a little bit and get some pitchers some work, and obviously, the results are in our favor."

The sweep improved the Tigers to 9-2 on the season.

Knights 9, Tigers 7

Mountain Home faced the Bishop Kelly Knights at Bishop Kelly on Thursday and came up a couple runs short, 9-7.

The Tigers started strong, taking advantage of some wildness by Bishop Kelly pitcher Ryan Eddy to score five runs in the first two innings. Eddy walked two batters in the first, and they both scored, one on a balk, the other on a towering two-run home run by Eric Christiansen over the right field wall.

Two more runs scored for the Tigers in the second inning as David Bitrick drove them home with a two-run triple.

The Knights bats woke up in the third as they scored two runs, and then in the fourth they ended Eric Christiansen's mound start with five runs on five hits that included two doubles and a home run.

Bishop Kelly plated a run in the fifth off Jon McCabe and added another one in the sixth off Alex Rodriguez to up their lead to 9-5.

Mountain Home rallied in the seventh, and scored two runs. They had the tying run on base when the inning ended, the Knights winning 9-7.

Eric Christiansen, who suffered the loss, had three hits including a single, double and a home run, driving in four runs. David Bitrick had two hits, including a triple, and drove in two runs. Tom Hennessey had the only other hit by the Tigers.

"Our guys were hitting the ball well in the early innings, with David Bitrick and Eric Christiansen giving us a solid lead there in the beginning," said Coach DeVore. "You could see our intensity was up early on, and then when they started battling back we kind of got back on our heels.

"Baseball is a game of momentum, and you could just feel the intensity swing from our side to their side and back to our side late in the game.

"Bishop Kelly is a quality club, and you can't afford those lapses where you get a little bit tentative. It really showed more than anything in our at bats in the middle innings."

Knights 15, Tigers 7

The Tigers hosted Bishop Kelly Friday at home and fell down early, but battled back to make a game of it, losing 15-7.

The Knights took a 12-2 lead after three innings. Mountain Home scored two runs in the fifth to keep the game going. Both teams scored three runs in the seventh, to make it a 15-7 final.

"I still feel like we're one of the teams to beat in the conference, but certainly on these couple of days Bishop Kelly was the better team," said Coach DeVore. "It definitely gives us some motivation to work harder. We had some bright spots. We had some guys hitting the ball well. Eric Christiansen had a great couple of games, but we've certainly got to get better and we know what's in store for us when it comes down to district tournament."

Eric Christiansen had three hits, including two doubles, and knocked in two runs. Tom Hennessey and Kevin Anderson both had two hits.Hennessey had an RBI. Brock Morris, David Bitrick and Skyler Podesek also had hits.Podesek's was a triple. Jake Hennessey had two RBIs, Anthony Castillo one.

Trevor Woodruff suffered the loss, his third in three decisions.

The loss dropped the Tigers to 9-4 overall and 2-3 in league play.

The Tigers had a non-conference game at Kuna on Monday.

They host Columbia in conference play tomorrow, and travel to Columbia on Friday, then go to Buhl on Saturday for a non-conference game with the Indians.

"It's good for us, though," said Coach DeVore of the busy week.

"We need to be playing at this point. We definitely could use some quality practices, too, where our pitchers can work on pitches a little bit more, not just in game situations. Luckily the games this week are spread out enough for that, but we also need to get back on the field and play some more and leave some of the feelings about the Bishop Kelly games behind and start building for the next time we play them and our other conference opponents."