Royals lose to Barons in Legion baseball debut

Thursday, June 4, 2015

The Mountain Home Royals dropped their season-opening doubleheader to the Boise Barons on Saturday at Bishop Kelly High School in Boise.

Big innings hurt the Royals both games as they lost, 19-4, in the first game and 14-4 in the second with both games going five innings by the 10-run rule.

A 12-run first inning did the Royals in during the first game, and they fell behind by 16 runs after two innings.

Riley Woodland had two hits and drove in a run for the Royals in the first game. Kody Arellano had a triple, and Esmer Castillo had Mountain Home's only other hit.

Curran Price and Luke Lockard also had RBIs for the Royals. Cody Blakemore suffered the loss, giving up 11 of the 12 runs the Barons scored in the first inning, all of them unearned.

Kole Filipovich finished the game on the mound for the Royals.

Mountain Home had a three-run lead in the second game, but a five-run fourth gave the Barons the lead, and seven more runs in the fifth to end the game.

Kody Arellano and Riley Woodland both had two hits in the second game. Arellano drove in two runs, Woodland, one, and scored two runs. Curran Price had a double, and David Welle also had a hit, and Esmer Castillo had an RBI. Kody Arellano suffered the loss for the Royals.

Royals head coach and manager Michael Hobgood was able to take away some positives from their first efforts of the season.

"We played very tight," the coach said. "We had a lot of young guys on the field and I feel we played very tense, which resulted in a lot of errors. We were missing two starters in (Jesse) Cobos and (Shae) Sterling, which is no excuse, but it definitely hurt us. I should have had the guys better prepared, but I feel we will use this as a learning experience and grow from it.

"I think it's a blessing in disguise that it happened May 30 and not July 30, and it gives us a chance to learn," Hobgood added. "Some guys did prove some things. Riley Woodland had a phenomenal day at the plate. Kole Filipovich threw extremely well, and Kody Arellano looked like the best player on the field."

Ultimately, a loss can actually benefit a team, the coach added.

"These let us know what some guys are capable of and some guys that aren't quite ready for certain roles," Hobgood said. "I don't see this as a lingering issue, but rather something that will make us better."

Mountain Home heads to the Vallivue Tournament this week, opening the tournament on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. against Nampa at Vallivue. On Friday, they play Caldwell at 2 p.m. at the College of Idaho field.

On Saturday, they have a 9 a.m. game against Emmett at the College of Idaho and face Middleton at 2 p.m. at Vallivue. Sunday's game will depend on how well they do the first three days.

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