Helper American Legion recently concluded their annual tourney in Helper. Coach Jeff Cisneros said, “We opened the tournament playing Price on Thursday night. We had a very large crowd and the game was very close for the first three innings. Jarod Lessar started for us on the mound and did a great job and picked up his first American Legion no hitter. We scored 6 runs in the fourth inning, 1 in the fifth and 2 more in the sixth inning to end the game early on the nine run mercy rule. Mike Peczuh led the offensive attack with 3 hits, 2 singles and a triple. Dakota Cisneros, Jordan Mellen and Ridge Nielson also multiple hits. I thought Price played very hard and Steven Zamantakis pitched very well for them. Jarod did a nice Job all night keeping Price guessing at the plate and our defense was once again very good. The win put us 1-0 in the tournament.
June 21, Pineview vs. Helper
“Our second game was Friday night against Pineview. Pineview is the only legion team from the St. George area this year and they have a combined team from some of the high schools in the St. George area. Jordan Mellen started on the mound and picked up the win for us. Jordan pitched 4 solid innings and allowed 3 runs in his first outing on the mound for us. Cole Fossat came in a pitched the final 3 innings in relief. Our defense was once again very good. We scored 2 runs in the 4th inning, 4 more in the 5th inning and added 1 more in the 6th inning for the 8-3 win. Bryce Blackburn, Dakota Cisneros, Derek Young and Jaren McCourt all had multiple hits for our offense. Jaren led the way with a triple and a homerun. I thought we played a solid game against a good team and the win put us 2-0 in the tournament.
June 22, Westlake vs. Helper
“Saturday we played a double header. The first game was with Westlake. This game counted as a tournament game and a league game for us. Derek Young took the mound and pitched very well throwing a complete game shutout. We won by the score of 10-0. Once again our defense was very good and our offense was great on the game scoring runs in every inning. Bryce Blackburn, Jordan Mellen, Jaren McCourt and Mike Peczuh led the way with multiple hits for the game. We were very consistent on offense and very good on defense thus leading us to the 10-0 win. The win put us 3-0 in the tournament and 5-1 in league play.
Cyprus vs. Helper
“The second game of the night had us face off with Cyprus. We lost to Cyprus last week in our league game and I think we were pretty eager to get another chance at them. They came into the game with a 3-0 record in the tournament as did we. Cole Fossat took the mound and pitched 5 solid innings to earn the win. Cyprus took an early 3-0 lead in the first inning but we settled down and scored runs in every inning after that. We took the win 14-5. Our defense and offense really got on track after the 1st inning. Jarod Lessar came in and pitched 2 innings in relief and also did a nice job. We had multiple players with hits with Bryce Blackburn leading the way with 4 singles on the night. Jordan Mellen had 2 doubles and a Homerun, Derek Young had a double and a single, Ridge Nielson had 2 singles, Jaren McCourt had a double and a single as did Tyler Procarione. Cole Fossat not only pitched a good game but he helped himself at the plate with a double and a homerun. This was our best hitting performance of the year so far and the win was a good one after getting beat by Cyprus the week before. The win put us 4-0 in the tournament and in the championship game. Cyprus also qualified for the championship game with their 3-1 record since it was the second best record of the tournament.
June 22, Cyprus vs. Helper
“This was the championship game for the tournament. Dakota started on the mound and pitched 5 solid innings and picked up the win. Brandon Oliver came in a pitched two good innings in relief and really did a nice job keeping Cyprus from getting anything going late. This was a very good game and a very well-played game. In the end we came out on top 5-3. We scored 2 runs in the 1st inning, 1 more in the second and 2 more in the 6th inning. With the score tied at three in the sixth inning Colton Greener had a big two strike, two out double to score Tyler Procarione who had singled. Bryce Blackburn then singled in Greener and the two runs was the difference in the game. I really thought we battled and played hard in this game. Cyprus once again had a very good pitcher on the mound who kept us in check for most of the game but I thought our pitching and timely hitting was just better and thus was the difference. The win made this the third straight year that we have won the Helper Tournament. Throughout the weekend we played very good baseball outscoring our opponents 46-11.
For the tournament we had four players make the all-tournament team. Bryce Blackburn, Dakota Cisneros, Jordan Mellen and Derek Young. Jaren McCourt was named the most outstanding hitter and received the big stick award and Jarod Lessar received the defensive player award for pitching his first no hitter and the only one in the tournament. These are all great awards for our team and multiple other players on our team also had great tournament performances. I really want to thanks all the fans for coming out to support not only our team but the Price team throughout the weekend. We had a great weekend and appreciate all those who helped out with putting this tournament on. A special thanks to my wife Valerie for running our concession stand and making the weekend a big success. Also a special thanks to the Helper City workers for all their help so far this year. Our next game will be Helper at Price at 6 p.m. on July 2 and on July 8 Herriman is at Helper,” said Coach Cisneros.
The Helper Legion team this year features two Emery County players including Ridge Nielson from Huntington and Brandon Oliver from Cleveland.