Tigers sweep conference doubleheader over Huskies

The Mountain Home Tigers got their bats going last week and swept a their conference games against the Emmett Huskies, winning 12-10 at Emmett and 21-20 at home.

Mountain Home 12, Emmett 10

In Thursday's game at Emmett, the Huskies scored five runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to wipe out a 7-5 Mountain Home lead, but the Tigers answered with five of their own in the top of the seventh to go up 12-10.

Alex Rodriguez shut the Huskies down in the bottom of the seventh to preserve the 12-10 Tiger win.

"Our bats finally came alive today," said Tiger baseball coach Mark Cotton. "We definitely started hitting the ball a lot better, and we're stringing hits together. The whole lineup hit really well -- it's definitely the best offensive effort of the year.

"We got a huge outing from Skyler Podesek -- I don't know a whole lot of people that have a day like that -- three home runs and nine RBI," the coach said. "He definitely put us on his shoulders today and carried us, but other guys stepped up, too. Anthony Castillo is starting to swing the bat really well and Ronnie Young stepped up for us."

Skyler Podesek and Ronnie Young both had three hits. Podesek's were all home runs -- one a grand slam -- as he knocked in nine runs.

Anthony Castillo had a double and a home run and drove in one run. Skylar Quintal, Jake Hennessey, Alex Rodriguez, Austin Bodily, Ryan Goldsby and Joe Gutierrez also had hits.

Anthony Castillo, the third of four Tiger pitchers, picked up the win, while Alex Rodriguez earned his second save.

Mountain Home 21, Emmett 20

Friday's game at home against Emmett saw the Huskies score three in the first and another in the top of the second to go up 4-0, but the Tigers pushed across six runs in the bottom of the inning top go up 6-4.

The Huskies tied it at 6-6 with two runs in the top of the third, but Mountain Home pushed across another run in the bottom of the inning to go up 7-6.

Emmett scored four times in the fourth, five in the fifth, and three in the sixth to go up 18-8 on the Tigers, but Mountain Home scored twice in the bottom of the sixth to keep the game going.

The Huskies scored twice in the top of the seventh to give Emmett a 20-10 lead, but the Tigers refused to give up.

After Ronnie Young's bases loaded double brought the Tigers within six, 20-14, and chased Emmett starter Jared Blacker from the mound, reliever Hunter Lawson had trouble finding the plate, walking four batters, hitting two and giving up a hit as Mountain Home clawed to within one, 20-19.

On came Wes Loy, who gave up a bases-loaded single to Ronnie Young that tied the game at 20-20, and then Alex Rodriguez worked a walk from Loy to score the winning run, the Tigers prevailing 21-20.

"It definitely wasn't what we expected today after yesterday," said Coach Cotton. "I thought we would come out and play better defense and just play better overall baseball. The one positive that we can really take out of this week is we're starting to hit the baseball really well, and if we can keep doing that, we'll keep ourselves in baseball games.

"But if we can just take that next step and start making routine plays and not giving free passes to hitters -- we've walked so many guys the past three weeks -- so if we can get rid of all those walks, we're going to be in really good shape, especially if our bats stay the way they've been."

Ronnie Young had the big bat for the Tigers Friday, getting four hits, including two doubles, knocking in six runs and scoring four runs.

Alex Rodriguez had three hits and three RBIs, Gage Curtis had two hits and drove in two runs. Jake Hennessey and Skyler Podesek both had hits and RBIs, and Enrique Varela and Joe Gutierrez also had hits. Anthony Castillo had an RBI.

The Tigers improve to 5-6 on the season, and 2-3 in conference.

This week's conference series is with Bishop Kelly. The Tigers host the Knights on Thursday and travel to Bishop Kelly on Friday. They also host the Buhl Indians in a non-conference doubleheader on Saturday, beginning at 11 a.m.

Coach Cotton was looking forward to the Bishop Kelly series.

"I don't know a whole lot about them. I know they're younger this year than they've been in the past, but any time you play BK we've got to play better than we did this week (against Emmett) for sure. Defense and pitching is definitely going to be the point of emphasis this week.

"Obviously we're going to keep working on hitting, because we're swinging the bat well, but when you play Bishop Kelly, you cannot make the kind of mistakes that we made today and expect to get out of there with a win. I definitely think we have the capability to play some good baseball. We've just got to put everything together at once."