Maple Mountain 10 Pleasant Grove 8
Two teams that know each other well went battle once again Wednesday in the 5A state tournament, with No. 2 Maple Mountain coming out on the right side of things this time around against No. 3 Pleasant Grove, 10-8.
After falling to Pleasant Grave the day prior, Maple Mountain’s bats were the story of this game, powering the side to victory and living to see another day.
Maple Mountain scored in every inning from the second onward and racked up 10 hits in the process.
Maple Mountain got solid production from catcher Brooks Pratt, who went 2 for 3 with two RBIs and a walk. Shortstop Lincoln Beenfield also had a strong showing, going 2 for 2 with a run scored and a walk.
“I felt like we laid off a lot of pitches. We didn’t swing at balls, and we swung at strikes, and then when we did swing, we put barrels on it. As we got into the second time through the order, our hitters had a good approach and that paid off for the guys,” said Maple Mountain head coach Jeremy Thomas.
With the win, Maple Mountain sets up another match with Pleasant Grove, their 5th meeting of the year to decide who will advance to the 5a state championship series.
“Pleasant Grove is a great team. We knew when they came into 5A that they were going to give everybody a challenge,” added Thomas. “We knew in our region play; it was gonna prepare us for situations like this. You just hope that the guys can perform and make plays when it matters. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t and today we did.”
Thomas knows that with the amount of games both teams have been playing this week in a short amount of time, that both teams might be a little tired. The key in the elimination game will be which team outperforms that other in the field and can play a cleaner style of baseball.
“You never know because in those situations, guys could be a little bit tired. They may not have their best stuff, but it’s all gonna come down to pitching and defense. Whoever can throw the most strikes, and whoever can make the most plays, is typically gonna keep the game close. If we can have a good approach, and swing the bat like we did today, then we have a good chance. It’s gonna be a good battle.”
It wasn’t easy, but #1 Spanish Fork found a way to get the job done against #4 West Field, winning 4-2 in extra innings and by so doing, extending their stay in the 5A state tournament.
“What we preach all of the time is sticking to our gameplan and keep doing what we do well. We stick with our approach throughout the whole game, and it paid off. I’d like to get our offense going a little earlier, but like I said, we stick with our approach,” said Spanish Fork head coach Hadley Thorpe. “The hits are going to come with the talent in our lineup, and the hits will be there. These guys seem to find a way when we get our backs up against wall, they always find a way.”
Leading 2-1 going into the 7th inning, West Field brought on closer Marshall Moon once again to try to shut down the potent Spanish Fork offense. Spanish Fork had other ideas however.
A double by Trigg Cloward knotted the game up at 2, ultimately sending the game to extra innings. In the top of the 8th inning, Spanish Fork continued to get good at bats off of Moon, getting an RBI single by Pratt Morley and tacking on another run later in the inning to take the lead for good.
Not only did Morley end up driving in the game-winning run in extra innings, he also had a gem of an outing on the mound in relief. He came on for Spanish Fork in the 4th inning, striking out 8 batters and not allowing a single hit.
“Pratt had absolutely incredible stuff. He throws hard in the zone all the time. Yeah, just that’s our guy. In every high leverage spot, we’ve gone to him, so we trust him fully in that spot. If anytime we can go to him in a tight spot, we do it,” said Thorpe.
Last year, Spanish Fork went on an incredible Cinderella run all the way to the state title as a #20 seed. This year as the top team in region, they aren’t catching anybody by surprise. Thorpe, however, has instilled an us against the world mentality that seems to be working for his team.
“We have a lot of holdovers from last year and doing it as the 20 seed, and we kind of took that mindset today that it was us against the world again in this spot. So it was comfortable for us today. This group wouldn’t do it the easy way, so they tried to do it the hard way every time.”