| Jennie Miller bunts against Granite. |
After a heartbreaking loss the previous week to region leader North Sanpete, the Emery High Lady Spartans righted their ship and inched closer to second place with a pair of region wins. Emery defeated fifth ranked Granite on Tuesday 2-1 and then gave Carbon a 4-0 defeat on Thursday.
Emery High pitcher Leslee Lake turned in an outstanding performance in the Carbon game. Lake pitched 6 2/3 innings of perfect ball. She had allowed Carbon no runs, no hits and had pitched only to the 20 batters that she needed to. The two Carbon base runners both got on due to fielding errors but both got quickly picked off and preserved the perfect game. Unfortunately, after two were out in the last inning, Lake did give up two soft fly balls that fell safe just behind the infielders. Lake struck out the last Carbon hitter to end the game.
Emery scored four runs in the win over Carbon. Jalee Jensen walked to start Emery’s half of the first inning, got to second on a passed ball, got to third on a ground out by Lacey Erickson and scored on a single by Eve Guymon.
Emery scored their other runs in the third inning. Jensen singled to right field to start the inning, Erickson also singled to right field and Guymon got her second RBI of the game with a double to left field. Jensen had scored for the second time. Erickson scored on a ground out by Carly Anderson and Guymon scored on a sharp hit to third base by Brandee Wilson that turned into a Carbon error.
Guymon had three hits in the game and had the only extra base hit. Besides Erickson and Jensen, Haylie Hansen and Lake also had singles in the game.
Against Granite, Emery scored once in the fourth inning and once in the fifth inning for their two runs while Granite was able only to score a single run in the seventh inning.
In the fourth inning, Guymon started the inning with a single and scored on a double to center field by Hansen. Lake scored the run in fifth inning; actually it was probably her fill in on the bases as speed up rules allows you pinch runners for both the catcher and the pitcher, after a single. Erickson also singled and picked up the RBI.
Lake, also pitching this game, allowed two Granite base runners in the first inning before getting the batter to fly out to end the inning. Lake struck out the side in the second inning, struck out two in the third inning plus another harmless fly ball. Granite hit three grounders for outs in the fourth inning, had a strikeout, another ground ball and a pop up in the fifth inning to continue having hitting woes.
Three singles in the sixth inning nearly gave the Farmers their first run. After two infield pop ups, on the third single to center field, Guymon threw a strike to home and got the runner trying to score for the last out. Lake gave up a home run on the last inning for the only Farmer run of the day.
Emery now faces Juan Diego in Castle Dale on Tuesday and Delta on the road on Thursday. North Sanpete has won the region title and Carbon is out of region contention. Juan Diego is 5-3 while Delta is 3-5. Emery is tied with Granite with 4-4 records. The race is close and Emery could finish anywhere from second to out of contention.