Royals split doubleheader

The Mountain Home Royals split their non-league American Legion baseball doubleheader at Twin Falls Friday, beating the Cowboys 15-8 in the first game and dropping the second game 11-7.

A seven-run second inning put the first game out of reach, as the Royals went on to win 15-8.

Jesse Cobos, Cody Blakemore and Teddy Reaume each had three hits to lead the Royals at the plate in the first game. Cobos had a double and home run and drove in two runs, while Blakemore had a double and one RBI.

Zach Petersen and Danny Brescia both had two hits. Petersen had a double and scored two runs and knocked in three. Brescia had a double, knocked in two and scored three. John Kennison, Skylar Quintal and Jesse Rodriguez also had hits. Kennison scored three runs, Quintal knocked in two runs and Rodriguez had one RBI.

Royals starting pitcher Jesse Cobos earned the win to improve to 3-0. Jesse Rodriguez pitched the final four innings to get the save.

Twin Falls had a seven-run second inning in the second game, which was more than enough to outscore the Royals 11-7.

Jesse Rodriguez had two doubles and drove in two runs for the Royals in the second game. Zach Petersen, John Kennison and Jesse Cobos also had hits. Petersen had an RBI and Cobos had a double. Teddy Reaume also had an RBI.

Levi Abrahamson suffered the loss for the Royals to fall to 1-1 on the season.

"It was two non-conference games and it was a good chance for us to go out and mix things up a little bit and give some guys that have earned some playing time a good amount of playing time, and at the end of the day, we didn't get much better from the beginning of the day," said Royals head coach and manager Alex Hoffman.

"We started out flat and booted the ball around early, couldn't throw strikes. The one good thing about the doubleheader was that our bats were alive and that's kind of what kept us in both ball games, but from a total standpoint of how things went, we didn't execute, and that showed in the outcome of that last game."

The Royals are 9-3 overall after the split and are 6-0 in league play. They hosted the Boise Gems in two league games Monday, travels to Centennial for two games on Friday and hosts Kuna for two on Saturday.