Boys baseball championship dreams come to abrupt end

A season that had lots of potential and dreams of a state 4A baseball championship came to a disappointing end Monday when the Tigers lost to the Columbia Wildcats 16-8 in a consolation bracket game at the District III 4A Baseball Tournament at Bishop Kelly.

Columbia led 2-1 after an inning and went up 4-1 in the top of the second, but the Tigers scored three in the bottom half of the inning to tie the game at 4-4 after two.

The Wildcats took advantage of hits, walks, hit-batters and errors to score seven runs in the top of the third. Mountain Home got three runs back in the bottom of the inning, but Columbia added three more in the fourth and two in the fifth to make it 16-7. The Tigers managed only one more run in the sixth, as it ended 16-8, Columbia.

Eric Christiansen had three hits, including a triple, and drove in one run for the Tigers. Trevor Woodruff and Skyler Podesek both had two hits, including doubles and RBIs. Jon McCabe had an RBI-triple, Anthony Castillo had a double and an RBI and Tom Hennessey and Kevin Anderson also had hits.

Alex Rodriguez started and pitched into the third inning, suffering his third loss against four wins.

The Tigers have a good nucleus coming back, but Tiger baseball coach Travis DeVore was sad to see the season end for his 10 seniors who had given so much to the program.

"With Jared Day and Alex Rodriguez coming back to anchor our pitching staff next year, and Skyler (Podesek) and Jake (Hennessey) behind the plate and mixed in other positions, that's a core of a group of guys you can definitely build a program around

"But you want to just pay tribute to the seniors, and some of them did have a great tournament. Trevor (Woodruff) was outstanding for us and really stepped up when we needed him.

"But we just didn't play complete baseball and it comes back to me getting them ready and being flawless down the stretch when it matters the most, and for whatever reason, we didn't get to that point this year. A disappointing finish, but these kids are great kids. They all have bright futures and they're a great group of boys."

The Tigers ended their season with a 15-11 overall record.