As district nears, Tigers split series against Middleton

After closing out the regular season with a split of their conference games with Middleton, the Tigers opened district tourney play Saturday at Kuna.

Tigers 12, Vikings 11

An eight-run second inning gave Mountain Home a lead they would hang on to for a 12-11 conference baseball win over the Middleton Vikings last Tuesday at the Mountain Home field.

The Tigers chased Middleton starter Ben Shuey with that eight-run second to give them an 8-2 lead.

The Vikings scored two in the third to make it 8-4 and added another in the fourth to make it 8-5.

Mountain Home took a 12-7 lead into the seventh inning. Alex Rodriguez got a strikeout and a ground-out quickly for the first two outs of the inning, but then the Vikings struck for four runs before Gage Curtis, the third Tiger to pitch in the inning, got a ground-out to end the game, the Tigers winning 12-11.

Mountain Home Tiger head baseball coach Mark Cotton was pleased with the win.

"It would be nice if we could just shut the door on people a little earlier than that and not let teams hang around. If we hadn't made a couple of defensive errors, we could have got the 10-run rule on them.

"We kind of had a letdown offensively in the sixth inning that I think really switched the momentum in the game, but we'll take the win.

"It was huge for us getting ready to go into districts to start gaining some momentum," Cotton said, adding "it will be really important for us tomorrow to go in there and get a win."

Jake Hennessey had his second straight three-hit game, getting a single, triple and home run and driving in four runs. Ronny Young had two hits, including a triple, and also drove in four runs. Anthony Castillo had two hits, Austin Bodily had a double, Skyler Podesek an RBI-single and Skylar Quintal and Alex Rodriguez also had hits.

Alex Rodriguez got the win to improve to 2-5 on the season. Gage Curtis picked up the save.

Vikings 17, Tigers 9

An eight-run third inning proved to be the difference last Wednesday at Middleton as the Vikings gained a split with Mountain Home, downing the Tigers 17-9.

Mountain Home got off to a good start, scoring four runs in the first inning, and led 5-1 after two, but the Vikings put together five hits with four Tiger walks to plate eight runs in the third and take a 9-5 lead. The Tigers never got any closer than that, as they lost 17-9.

"It's funny, we gained all the momentum at the beginning of the game, and then we start putting guys on and walking guys and the defense falls asleep, and it all kind of snowballed from there," said Coach Cotton.

Mountain Home managed just six hits off three Middleton pitchers.

Jake Hennessey had a triple and two RBIs, Anthony Castillo had a two-run double, Skyler Podesek had an RBI single, Joe Gutierrez had a double and Ronny Young and Alex Rodriguez also had hits.

Young, the second of four pitchers, suffered the loss. On the day, Mountain Home pitching walked 11 batters and hit one while giving up 13 hits.

The Tigers finished the regular season with a 3-11 conference record and 7-15 overall mark. They opened district tourney play Saturday as the number eight seed, facing top-seeded Kuna at Kuna.

Kavemen 4, Tigers 1

Mountain Home's Ronny Young and Kuna's Alex Bunn battled in a pitching duel Saturday at Kuna in first-round district play. Kuna only outhit the Tigers 7-6, but strung three of them together in the second inning to score three runs and two more together in the third to score another run and win 4-1.

Mountain Home managed to score a run in the seventh, and had two on with one out, but a double play ball ended the inning and the game.

"There is nothing to complain about with this game," said Coach Cotton. "I thought we made some huge strides, and it showed in practice the last couple days. You could see a difference and it showed today. We played defense and we pitched it, and it comes down to a couple small plays.

"They hit Ronny a little bit, but for the most part, Ronny pitched a heck of a game.

"It's great to see the guys take that next step. You never want to take a loss, but at the same time, compared to how we've been playing the last couple weeks, we really played a heck of a game today, and I think that's going to give us a lot of momentum going into this week."

Jake Hennessey had two hits for the Tigers. Danny Brescia, Skyler Podesek, Gage Curtis and Joe Gutierrez also had hits. Curtis had an RBI.

Ronny Young suffered the loss, but went the distance, striking out three and hitting two batters.

The loss put the Tigers in the loser's bracket Monday at Middleton against the Vikings. The tournament moved to Nampa's Rodeo Park on Tuesday, with the third-place game today, May 11, and the championship game Friday at 7 p.m.