| Kyle Asay reaches for a short throw at first base during last season. |
The early season schedule is designed to let the teams shake out the cobwebs and work out the kinks. That is what the Dinos are doing as they headed down to St. George for a four game tournament.
While the final scores showed a mixed result, Coach Moynier was reasonably happy with the progress the team was making. Carbon lost the first game to Tooele 12-2, but then came back to down Cedar 16-6 in five. They followed that up with a 16-14 win over Wasatch before ending the tournament with an 11-0 loss to Dixie. Their record stands at 3-2 for the season.
Early innings are where Carbon had trouble in most of the games especially in the first game against Tooele. They found themselves down 10-1 by the end of three. After a pitching change they held Tooele to only one run in the next two innings. The Dinos couldn’t string together a series of hits to put anything on the boards. The game ended in five innings.
The second game against Cedar was one of the Dinos best efforts so far this season. They jumped on Cedar early and often. The entire team was hitting the ball well. They ended that game in five.
Wasatch took advantage of the Dino pitching early in the third game, but this time they were able to adjust quickly enough to slow down the damage. The Dino bats took over and the Dinos took a big lead. Wasatch was determined to stay in the game and they made a final push. But the Dinos edged them by two in a full seven innings.
Carbon seemed to run out of steam as they took on Dixie in their final game of the tournament. Dixie put the hurt on Carbon in the first two innings of play and Carbon had no answer. The Dinos went out in a shutout to wrap up the weekend.
Moynier knew that the trip would be a learning experience. “We learned a lot about ourselves, not only physically, but emotionally. The weekend has helped us see where our maturity level is and what we need to work on.” He noted the outstanding play of several of his players. Offensively JJ Blue and Dustin Pollastro showed off some good consistent hitting. He was pleased with what he saw out of junior Ron Herrera as well. Brady Wilde was named to the All Tournament team for his hitting as well.
On the pitching front, he noted that Brett Johnson was a bright spot in the game against Cedar. Also Kyle Asay and Jordan Moynier stepped up with some solid performances when they were needed.
The team will head to Colorado for another preseason tournament this weekend. Region play begins on March 27th. The team will not play a home game until April 10th against North Sanpete.