Mariners bring the wood to Deer Lodge
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Mariners B team remain hot at wooden-bat tournament. The young squad goes 4-1 in Deer Lodge and has won seven of their last nine games.
The Mission Valley Mariners B squad continued their accelerated learning curve by going 4-1 at the Mike Walsh Memorial wooden-bat tournament over the weekend.
Despite winning four games at the tournament in Deer Lodge and shutting out three of their opponents, the Mariners fell on the wrong side of a tiebreaker between three teams and were kept out of the championship game Sunday.
As tough as it was for Mission Valley manager Chris Brown to see his team come home without any hardware, he has to be pleased with how they performed at the tournament, especially with the majority of the team making the jump from Babe Ruth ball to American Legion baseball this season.
Just a few weeks ago the Mariners had a 2-11 record as they tried to adjust to the new style of play, but since that time have gone7-2 in their last nine games.
“The kids finally found out how to play as a team and they really figured out how to hit at this level,” Brown said. “They’re a little bit more patient at the plate. They realize they don’t have to hit every strike and that they can wait until they get a good pitch to hit.”
Brown wants his team to be even more patient at the plate. Out of the 22 first pitches the Mariners put into play at the tournament, 12 went for outs.
After jumping out to a 7-3 lead over Great Falls to open the tournament Thursday night, the Mariners had to extinguish a late Charger rally to hold on for an 8-7 win.
The Chargers scored two runs in the sixth and had already scored two runs in the seventh, before center fielder Kevin Hagadorn relayed a throw to second baseman Austin VonTom, who cut down the game-tying run at home for the final out of the game.
In the 17-0 rout over the Anaconda A’s Friday morning, Mariner first baseman Chris Clary continued his power surge with a 2 for 3 performance at the plate with both of his hits home runs. Clary smashed a grand slam in the first and followed that up with a three-run shot over the right field fence in the second inning. Clary finished with eight RBIs.
“He’s been on a tear the last two-and-a-half weeks, he’s just been smoking the ball,” Brown said.
VonTom gave up only one hit and struck out nine in five innings of work to pick up the win.
The Mariners posted back-to-back shutouts Friday morning, when Robbie Gauthier kept Helena off the scoreboard in a 5-0 blanking of the Reps. Gauthier allowed only three hits and struck out five in the shutout.
“Helena is a solid A team. They do things right. They don’t make a lot of mistake, so to shut them out is big,” Brown said. Helena went on to win the championship.
Second baseman Jacob Young was 3 for 3 with a RBI and a run. Hagadorn went 2 for 3 and finished with a RBI and a run. All nine of the Mariners’ hits in the game were singles.
The only blemish for the Mariners at the tournament was a 6-3 loss to the Dillon Cubs Saturday, but they followed that up with 11-0 shutout over the tournament host. Eight of the Mariners’ 11 runs against the Wranglers came in the third inning, where 13 Mariner batters came to the plate.
Kellen Hoyt pitched all five innings, striking out three and allowing only two hits to pick up his second win of the tournament and fourth of the season. Hoyt opened the tournament against Great Falls. It was the first time he had pitched in nearly two weeks.
“He looked a little rusty. He was a little wild, but he was still effective,” Brown said. “The second game he was very, very impressive.”
Mariner leadoff hitter Jack Humphreys went 7 for 18 at the tournament and VonTom was 10 for 14 in the second spot.
“They did a great job of setting the table. If you get the first two hitters on base it puts pressure on the defense and it puts pressure on the pitcher. It allows you to put things in motions and anytime you can get things moving at this level it forces the defense to make mistakes,” Brown said. “We capitalized on a lot of mistakes this weekend.”
The Mariners B team opens the Firecracker Tournament against the Missoula Pioneers Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.
Summary
Mission Valley 8, Great Falls 7
Mission V. 041 110–8 10 3
Great Falls 200 102 2–7 6 3
Kellen Hoyt, Dalton Molzohn (6) and Jack Humphreys. Matt Shearer and Derick Powell. W - Hoyt. L - Shearer
Mission Valley 17, Anaconda 0
Anaconda 000 00–0 1 4
Mission V. 5(12) 00x–17 13 4
Austin Von Tom and Jake Young. W -VonTom.
Mission Valley 5, Helena 0
Helena 000 000 0–0 30
Mission V. 004 001 x–5 9 0
Robbie Gauthier and Jack Humphries. W - Gauthier.
Dillon 6, Mission Valley 3
Mission V. 00 2010 0–3 3 2
Dillon 202 200 x–6 4 0
Jake Young, Cole McArthur (5) and Jack Humprheys. L - Young
Mission Valley 11, Deer Lodge 0
Deer Lodge 000 000 0–0 2 1
Mission V. 208 001–11 10 0
Kellen Hoyt and Jack Humphreys. W - Hoyt.
