| Emery first baseman, Ryne Jones catches the ball. |
With three region wins last week the Emery High Spartan baseball team has taken a firm hold of second place in the region 8 race this season. Last Tuesday, Emery defeated Carbon twice in a doubleheader in Castle Dale. The first game was 10-0 for the Spartans and the second game was 5-2 for Emery. Emery then traveled to Delta on Friday and defeated the Rabbits for the second time this season. The score this time was 4-1.
Brett Mecham, a junior from Huntington, has stepped up to give Emery another good pitcher to complement Gatlan Huntington on the mound for the Spartans. Emery was lacking when it came to an experienced staff as the season began but now Emery seems loaded with quality pitching. Mecham won two of the games last week and Huntington took the other.
In the Tuesday opener, Mecham pitched a complete game shutout. Although he gave up 8 hits, he spread them out over seven innings to keep Carbon in check. Huntington pitched the second game, gave up two runs and four hits in another complete game victory. On Friday, Mecham started on the mound and gave up one run and four base hits in getting the win. Skyler Jensen pitched the last couple of innings, gave up one single and generally kept the Rabbits off balance.
| Jason Giles bats for Emery. |
Coach Jimmy Jones, “Our pitching staff is throwing pretty well right now. Although they do not strike out a lot of batters, they throw strikes and cause a lot of ground balls to be hit that we are making good defensive plays on and winning games because of it. Brett and Gatlan throw hard and Skyler keeps them off balance.”
Although Coach Jones thinks that their hitting needs to keep improving, the Spartan banged out 23 base hits in the three games last week.
In the first Carbon game, Emery scored one run in the first, one in the third inning, three in the fourth inning, one in the fifth inning and four runs in the sixth inning.
Jason Giles walked and would score on a ground out by Jordan Gee in the first inning. In the third, Gatlan walked, advanced on a Giles single and scored on a fielder’s choice hit by Tayler Tanner.
Ryne Jones singled, Colby Snow and Derrick Allred both got on due to Carbon errors and all three would score before the inning was over in the fourth. In the fifth inning, Blake Mortensen singled, stole second and scored on a base hit by Brett Mecham.
Allred, Huntington, Gee and Mortensen all got on base and scored in the sixth inning. Gee led the team with three base hits and Mecham had two. Tanner and Mecham each had two RBI’s.
| Emery pitcher Brett Mecham throws the ball. |
In the second Carbon game, Emery scored once in the first inning as Gee would single and eventually score without another Emery base hit. Emery then scored twice in the fifth inning and twice more in the sixth inning to get the win.
Allred and Skyler Jorgensen each singled, advanced on a sacrifice bunt by Jensen and would score on a wild pitch and a hard hit to shortstop in the fifth inning. In the sixth inning, Mortensen and Mecham would score as Allred and Jensen each would single. Gee and Allred each had two base hits in this game. Jorgensen had two RBI’s.
At Delta, Emery scored once in the second inning, twice in the fifth inning and once more in the seventh inning. Ryne Jones scored the first run, Huntington the second run followed by Mecham with Snow scoring the final run. Gee, Jones and Huntington each had two base hits in the game with Gee also having two RBI’s.
Emery will now play a non-region game at Gunnison on Wednesday and will host region leader Juan Diego this Friday in Castle Dale.