Tigers wounded at Bishop Kelly, split series at Buhl

The Mountain Home Tigers dropped both games of their conference series with Bishop Kelly and split a doubleheader at home against Buhl.

Knights 9, Tigers 5

Knights 9, Tigers 3

The Tigers lost both games of their conference series with Bishop Kelly last week, losing 9-5 at home on Thursday and 9-3 at Bishop Kelly on Friday.

Thursday night in Mountain Home, the Knights jumped out to a 7-0 lead after three innings and coasted to a 9-5 win.

Bishop Kelly only outhit the Tigers 7-6, but two walks and five hit batters helped the Knights' cause.

Alex Rodriguez had two hits, including a triple, and drove in one run. Jake Hennessey, Skyler Podesek, Ronnie Young and Skylar Quintal also had hits. Hennessey knocked in two runs and Podesek had a double. Jared suffered the loss, his second against one win.

In Friday's game at Bishop Kelly, the Knights broke it open with five runs in the fifth inning to go on to a 9-3 win.

Jake Hennessey had two hits, including a double, and knocked in one run. Anthony Castillo, Ronnie Young, Alex Rodriguez and Austin Bodily also had hits. Rodriguez drove in two runs.

Rodriguez suffered the loss, giving up all nine runs, but only three of them were earned.

"I think we played a lot better baseball today then we have in a while, at least defensively," said Tiger baseball coach Mark Cotton. "Alex had probably one of his best outings of the year, minus the first game of the season against Wood River. This is by far the best outing he's had in a long time.

"The thing is, we unraveled there in the fifth. We've got to stop those big innings. I really liked the approach that we took to the game today, versus yesterday. I thought we came out really flat yesterday and today we played inspired baseball. We just had that one letdown in the fifth. Outside of that, I thought we played pretty good baseball."

Buhl 7, Tigers 5

Tigers 14, Buhl 4

The Tigers hosted the Buhl Indians Saturday for a non-conference doubleheader and came up short, 7-5, in the first game, but whipped the Indians 14-4 in six innings in the second game.

In the first game, Buhl jumped out to a 5-1 lead off Tiger starter Skyler Podesek through two.

The Tigers got just four hits off Buhl's Markus Shively, but did manage to score four in the bottom of the seventh to make it a 7-5 ball game.

Skyler Podesek had a two-run double, Jake Hennessey had an inside-the-park home run, Gage Curtis had a two-run single and Jared Day also had a hit for the Tigers.

Podesek suffered the loss in his first outing of the year. Ronnie Young replaced Podesek on the mound in the third and pitched the rest of the way, giving up just two unearned runs.

In the second game, the bats came alive as Mountain Home pounded three Buhl pitchers for 13 hits on their way to a 14-4 win in six innings.

Danny Brescia had four hits and scored three runs for the Tigers in the second game. Jake Hennessey had three hits, including a triple, and scored three times as well as knocking in three runs.

Alex Rodriguez had two hits and drove in two runs, Anthony Castillo had a two-run home run, Skyler Podesek had an RBI-triple, Gage Curtis had a two-run single and Skylar Quintal had a double.

Curtis went the distance for the win, his first in four decisions. He struck out nine Buhl batters.

Coach Cotton thought the early deficit was a factor in the first game, but liked how they came back in the second.

"We can't afford to give up big innings, and when you do, you have to play catch-up ball, and we just weren't able to get it done, though we finished strong," he said. "It's really just come down to our defense right now and giving ourselves a chance defensively. We certainly played better in the second game. The bats came around.

"Anthony Castillo was struggling lately but got a big hit and came through for the Tigers," the coach added. Meanwhile, Freshman Danny Brescia, who moved up from the JV, provided additional help for the team.

"He got on base and was a real catalyst for us," the coach added. "We've been looking for a guy to hit lead off and kind of do something like that for us, so it was good to see him come through."

The Tigers take a 2-5 conference and 6-9 overall record into this week's conference series with Columbia, facing the Wildcats Thursday at Columbia and Friday at home.