Mountain Home Tigers drop four at spring classic

Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Mountain Home Tigers struggled in the field as they lost all four contests during the yearly Bucks Bags Baseball Spring Classic last week.

Columbia 7, Mountain Home 6

The Tigers opened the Bucks Bags Spring Classic against Columbia and trailed by a run as they fell to the Wildcats, 6-7, on March 29.

A five-run fifth inning gave the Wildcats the lead.

Skyler Podesek and Gage Curtis both had two hits for Mountain Home with Podesek knocking in two runs and Curtis adding one. Austin Bodily, Jake Hennessey and Jesse Rodriguez also had hits with Hennessey scoring three. Gage Curtis pitched the first five innings with and Zach Peterson closing out the game to suffer the loss.

Minico 15, Tigers 2

An eight-run third inning for Minico put the game out of reach as the Spartans easily won against the Tigers, 15-2.

Gage Curtis led the Tigers at the plate with three hits. Austin Bodily, Skyler Podesek, Alex Rodriguez, Alex Burke and Nick Cruz also had hits.

Jared Day, the first of five Mountain Home pitchers, suffered the loss.

Skyline 7, Tigers 6

Mountain Home's game on Friday game against Skyline from Idaho Falls was washed out by rain. However, the two teams were able to play on Saturday with the Grizzlies scoring an unearned run in the sixth to win it, 7-6.

John Kennison had two hits against Skyline and drove in a run. Danny Brescia, Austin Bodily, Skyler Podesek and Gage Curtis also had hits with Podesek and Curtis each earning an RBI. Jesse Rodriguez, the third of four Tiger pitchers, suffered the loss.

Boise 12, Tigers 2 (five innings)

Closing out play in the Bucks Bags Spring Classic, the Boise Braves scored six runs in the first, four in the third and added two more in the fifth to down the Tigers, 12-2, in just five innings Saturday afternoon.

Austin Bodily and Jake Hennessey both had two hits for Mountain Home against the Braves. Skyler Podesek had the only other hit for the Tigers with a double.

Alex Rodriguez, the first of three Mountain Home pitchers, suffered the loss.

Despite going 0-4 in the Spring Classic, Tigers baseball coach Mark Cotton saw some good things come from the weekend games.

"The tough thing about those close games, when you lose by one run, you kind of go back through the scorebook and see numerous opportunities to win the ball game," the coach said. "I think the kids are aware of it."

The games came down to not executing the little things that the team had worked on in recent weeks, like reading balls in the dirt and getting the bunts down, the coach added.

"Those are big differences in baseball games, so we went 0-for-4 on the weekend, but I don't think it's necessarily indicative of who we are as a team, especially with what we've shown through the first couple weeks.

The coach feels the team went through a rough patch over the weekend, "but I have full confidence we're going to get back on track this week."

The Tigers dropped to 4-5 on the season and took a 4-1 conference record into Nampa on Tuesday for the conclusion of the game with the Bulldogs that was suspended in the bottom of the third inning with the Tigers up, 7-4.

Mountain Home hosts Skyview on Thursday, April 5, before traveling to Skyview on Friday. Both games start at 5 p.m.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: