Royals open districts with win over Barons

The Mountain Home Royals picked up three wins last week in American Legion baseball, including the opening game of the district tournament.

Royals 4, Twin Falls 2

Royals 7, Twin Falls 1

The Royals closed out their regular season American Legion baseball schedule with a doubleheader sweep of the Twin Falls Cowboys last Tuesday night in Mountain Home. The Royals won the first game, 4-2, and took the nightcap, 7-1.

Mountain Home jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning of the first game, and led all the way, going up 4-1 after six innings and putting down an attempted rally in the seventh that saw the Cowboys score one run to make it a 4-2 final.

Royals head coach and manager Alex Hoffman took the win, but was not happy with his team's play this close to the district tourney.

"A win's a win," he said. "Cobos threw well, Quintal threw well, surprisingly well for being out for two weeks, but we didn't execute the way we needed to, offensively or defensively, and that's unfortunate, because these are things we should have had out of the way.

"I hate to be so negative after a win, but at the same time, we're just a few days away from district and this isn't the team I anticipated showing up to advance to the state playoffs. But we'll see and take it one game at a time now and see that we can't turn things around."

Danny Brescia and Bailey Miller-Hodge both had two hits for the Royals in the first game, Brescia drove in two runs. Teddy Reaume, John Kennison, Zach Petersen and Cody Blakemore also had hits. Meanwhile, Reaume knocked in a run, and Tyler McCall also had an RBI.

Jesse Cobos pitched four innings of three-hit ball to get the win, improving to 5-0 on the season. Skylar Quintal came on in relief and pitched three scoreless innings of relief in his first time back since injuring his knee on June 24.

In the second game, Twin Falls scored an unearned run in the first inning, but Royals starter John Kennison and relievers Ross Harlan and Levi Abrahamson shut down the Cowboys the rest of the way.

Mountain Home scored three in the first, two in the third and single runs in the fourth and sixth to make it a 7-1 final.

"It wasn't the best game, but it worked," said Royals assistant coach Michael Hobgood after the second game win. "We split with them last time, but managed a sweep tonight. Didn't play that good of defense, but got some good efforts from our pitchers."

Zach Petersen, Jesse Cobos and John Kennison each had two hits for the Royals in the second game. Petersen drove in two runs, Kennison had a triple and Cobos had a double and scored two runs. Danny Brescia, Cody Blakemore, Bailey Miller-Hodge and Skylar Quintal also had hits. Brescia had a double, while Blakemore and Miller-Hodge had RBIs.

John Kennison threw five innings and got the win, improving to 3-1. Ross Harlan and Levi Abrahamson closed out the win.

Royals 8, Barons 5

The Royals opened the Area B East Class A American Legion District Tournament with an 8-5 win over the Boise Barons Sunday at Timberline Park in Boise.

The Royals scored an unearned run in the bottom of the first inning to take a 1-0 lead, which held up until the Barons pushed across two unearned runs against Royals starter Levi Abrahamson in the top of the fourth to give the Barons a 2-1 lead.

Mountain Home battled back with two runs in the bottom of the fourth to regain the lead, 3-2, added three more in the fifth and two in the sixth to go up 8-2.

Ross Harlan relieved Levi Abrahamson to start the seventh inning. An error and two hits produced a Boise run and Skylar Quintal replaced Harlan on the mound for the Royals.

The Barons got two hits off Quintal before he was able to record an out, and the Barons then scored another run to make it 8-4. Quintal struck out the next batter, but walked the next with the bases loaded to score another run to narrow the gap at 8-5. Quintal then struck out the next batter to end the threat and the ball game.

"That's definitely a different B.K. ball club than we saw early in the season," Coach Hoffman said. "But our guys stayed focused and hit the ball when they needed to, and it allowed us to score some runs and win the ball game."

John Kennison and Skylar Quintal both had two hits and scored two runs for the Royals. Quintal drove in a run and Kennison had a double. Zach Petersen, Danny Brescia, Jesse Cobos, Cody Blakemore and Teddy Reaume all had hits. Petersen had two RBIs, Cobos had a double and RBI, Blakemore and Reaume both drove in a run and Brescia had a double.

Levi Abrahamson picked up the win to improve to 5-1. Skylar Quintal earned his third save of the season.

The win put the Royals in the quarterfinals against Emmett on Monday.