Emery baseball pulls big upset at Juan Diego

By GARY ARRINGTON Sports Writer

Emery traveled to Juan Diego last week for what turned out to be their only game of the week due to inclement weather and soundly defeated the preseason favorite picked to win 3-A baseball this season. Emery played probably their best all around game of the season and came away with a 7-1 region win.
Brett Mecham started on the mound for Emery and pitched five solid innings. Mecham held the Soaring Eagles to six scattered base hits and the one run. That single run came in the second inning as the leadoff batter in the inning got on base due to an Emery error and later scored on another Emery error.
Gatlan Huntington pitched the final two innings in relief and gave up two base hits in the sixth inning and one Juan Diego batter got on base in the seventh inning due to another Emery error.
For Emery, Kashe Jewkes walked in the second inning followed by a Huntington single to left field. After two were out for Emery, Colby Snow hit a shot down the left line for a double and both runners scored. Juan Diego was upset that the ball was called fair rather than foul and made quite a stink about that call but to no avail as the local Salt Lake official stuck with his call. Snow would then score in the inning even though the next batter struck out on a 2-2 pitch.
Juan Diego is loaded with good pitchers and AJ Begay started this game and pitched the first five innings for the Eagles and gave up the first three runs. Begay won the first game of the year that the Eagles played as he teamed up with a reliever and threw a no-hitter. On this day, Begay allowed three runs and gave up five base hits. In the fourth inning, Tayler Tanner doubled to open the inning but got picked off the base after a fly ball by Nevin Jensen and Addison Collard singled in the inning. In the first inning, Jason Giles singled for the other Emery hit.
Juan Diego’s ace pitcher Caleb Olsen pitched the final two innings and gave up the final four runs.
In the seventh inning, Jensen walked to lead off the inning and two consecutive Eagle infield errors loaded the bases. Collard got on base because the third baseman misplayed the ball and then Jewkes got on base because the second baseman misplayed his ground ball. With the bases loaded and one out, Gatlan Huntington swung on a 1-1 pitch and hit a long shot over the left center field fence for a grand slam homerun that really shut down the Eagles.
While it may be that Juan Diego and Judge Memorial are still the odds on favorites for the state title, Emery proved that on any given day an upset can and does occur.
On this day, Emery maximized their intensity and made the most of the opportunities. Emery had 10 batters end up as base runners and seven of those scored. Juan Diego actually had 11 base runners in the game but only one came into score.
Emery’s Friday ball game with Delta got snowed out because the Emery field had about an inch of the white stuff. The game will probably be made up later in the season. Emery hosts Salem Hills today, Tuesday at the Spartan field and then travels to play Carbon on Wednesday.