Spring sports continue as baseball and softball win a few lose a few under wintry playing conditions

By GARY ARRINGTON Sports writer

On a trip to Hurricane High and then an appearance in the annual Snow Canyon softball tournament, the Lady Spartans are satisfied that they have made progress as a team in this young season. The Spartans went 4-2 against good competition and are now ready to start region play this week.
Last Thursday, Emery started the trip with a game at Hurricane against the always-tough Tigers. Emery defeated Hurricane 19-2 after a 14-run sixth inning. Emery then defeated Rowland Hall, a private Salt Lake school 17-0. Canyon View then snuck by Emery 2-0 in a game that ended at just after midnight. Emery then defeated a good Wasatch team 9-3. Emery’s next opponent was Carbon and Emery came away with a 5-3 win. Emery’s last opponent was Bountiful High School. Emery played the Braves tough through three innings and then errors led to a 12-2 win.
Emery started the week with a 10-0 defeat of North Sevier. In a game that turned into a home game rather than the scheduled road game due to field conditions in Salina, Emery controlled the game from the beginning and came away with the easy preseason victory. Andi Smith, in just her second start as a high school player, pitched a no-hitter. Smith struck out 11 batters and gave up just one fourth-inning walk.
Makia Sherman led the Spartans with two hits in three at-bats and drove in four runs. Her hits included a double. Michelle Oliver went three for three and Gabby Guymon went two for three with a double included. Emery’s defense committed no errors in the game.
At Hurricane, Emery scored first with two runs in the second inning and led 5-2 before the big inning that ended the game. McKenzie Grange went three for four batting with two doubles and had three RBIs. Markette Tanner went four for five in the game with one hit a double and Tanner also had three RBIs. Oliver also went three for four and had a pair of RBIs. Guymon was three for three and Sherman was three for six in the game with all three singles coming in the sixth inning. Danavin Reid only had one base hit but she drove in five runs. Emery committed no errors in this game while scoring 19 runs on 17 hits. Smith got the win for Emery.
Whitney Roper started on the mound against Rowland Hall and pitched a four-inning no-hit shutout perfect game. Roper struck out nine of the 12 batters she faced. Sherman, Tanner, Shelby Mason, Guymon, Abbie Kay and Roper all had multiple hits in the shortened game. After leading 8-0, Emery scored nine runs in the fourth inning and left the bases full.
Smith returned to the mound against Canyon View and pitched five strong innings. Canyon View scored two runs and had three base hits in the game. Three Emery errors allowed the two runs to score. Emery’s only hit in the game was a Grange single in the fifth inning.
In the final game of the day, Smith gave up three runs, five base hits and struck out five batters in picking up a win against Wasatch. Emery scored in every inning with Tanner leading the offense with three hits and three RBIs. One hit was a double. Sherman also had a double in the game as eight Emery batters got base hits.
On Saturday against Carbon, the Dinos took the first lead at 1-0 in the second inning and added two more runs in the fourth inning to lead 3-0. Emery scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning and then added another run in the fifth inning. Smith struck out six batters in getting the win and none of the runs that scored were earned runs. Three Carbon errors, a pair of walks and three base hits led to the Emery runs. Picking up base hits in the game were Oliver, Roper and Jennings.
In the final outing of the week, Emery and Bountiful battled to a 2-2 tie through three innings before seven base hits and two Emery errors plus several mental errors led to the 10 runs for the Braves. Although Emery gave up 12 runs in the game, only two of those runs were earned meaning that errors did not lead to them.
In seven games last week, Emery outscored the opposition 62-22. Out of the 22 runs given up, only four of those were earned. Guymon and Oliver led Emery with 10 base hits each for the week. In the seven games, Guymon is batting .556 and Oliver .526. Tanner is batting .474 and Grange is batting .421. Roper in three games is batting .833.