Green River Pirates finish season at state

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The 1A baseball, region 18 champion Green River Pirates made their third consecutive trip to the State quarter finals game in Spanish Fork to battle against the Piute Thunderbirds on Oct. 10. The weather forecast for game day was predicted to be a bit blustery; as it turned out the weather wasn’t all that bad but the mood at the end of the game for the Pirates was far worse than the weather.
Six seniors entered the game riding a six game winning streak; confident they could break the previous two quarter final game results and make it to the semi-finals.
Holden Marshall led the Pirate attack and threw a complete-game four-hitter with seven strike outs and five base on balls in the loss to the Thunderbirds.
Justin Johnson, Sarah Swalberg and Caleb White were responsible for the four hits generated by the Pirates. Justin Johnson hit two doubles in his three times at bat while Sarah and Caleb managed singles.
With the score knotted up at zero after 5.5 innings, Justin Johnson blasted the second of his two doubles while Sarah Swalberg pounded one into shallow left field, allowing Justin to cross home plate standing up. The Pirates were on the score board and Holden was back on the mound at the top of the sixth inning and victory was in the air.
The jubilation was short lived though as the first Piute batter hit one to left for a single and the next batter took a walk.
The Pirates had been here before and had retired the inning with no runs scored but this was the championship game and they wanted it, they wanted it real bad. A couple of untimely throwing errors in an attempt to catch the two base runners off the bag paved the way for both of them to cross home plate.
There you have it, game, set, match. Oh, there were two more chances for the Pirates to tie the score or take the lead (they even had Jason Johnson at second base but he was picked off as he took a little too much of a lead off second base) and the Pirates held the Thunderbirds scoreless in the top of the seventh inning but they just didn’t have the bats humming enough to get guys on base and bring them around.
With a record of three wins to five losses in mid season to securing the region championship and playing in the quarter final game; the season was a resounding success. Go Pirates.