| Blake Mortensen is tagged out on a fielders choice play at third on Friday night against Woods Cross. |
On July 9 Helper took on Kearns at home. Even though they were taking on the toughest team in the valley league, the home boys sailed along with a very good game until the fourth inning. Helper even drew first blood with a run in the first inning. JD Sherman and Kyler Edgehouse reached base on errors. Sherman scored on a double by Trevor Thompson.
Kearns scored a run in the second inning to tie the score. Edgehouse was the starting pitcher and controlled Kearn’s hitting for three innings.
The wheels came off in the fourth with Kearns scoring seven runs on six hits, with two of those being home runs. Brady Wilde came on in relief of Edgehouse in the inning.
In the fifth Kearns scored seven more runs on seven hits, adding two more homers. Helper could not find any offense and and the game was ended with the nine-run rule. The final score was 15-1.
“Kearns has a very strong team and as I have mentioned and are in first place.” commented Coach Cisneros. “This was not our best performance. We did not hit the ball and our pitchers started falling behind in the count. Good teams are going to hit and we did not answer the call.”
Wednesday night saw the team traveling to play West. Helper went into the Wednesday night match up tied with West for third place.
Helper scored two runs in the first inning on single by Sherman and a homer by JJ Blue. Continuing to roll they scored three more in the second inning on a walk to Tyler Turcasso and then Wilde sent one over the fence. A single by Sherman and another single by Thompson scored the third run of the inning.
West scored a run in the second inning off starting pitcher Brett Johnson. It was looking good for Helper as they scored three more in the fourth on four walks and error and two singles.
But then West went on their own tear by putting up seven runs in the bottom of the fourth on five hits and three errors. The game was then suspended because of darkness after only four complete innings tied at 8-8. The game will have to be finished in Helper on July 19t before a regularly scheduled match up.
The Helper squad returned home Friday night with a wild four-run rally in the seventh and final inning that earned them an 11-10 victory over the visiting Woods Cross.
Turcasso was the starter and the left-hander hung on until the fourth inning when the visitors scored twice. This brought Edgehouse in relief to retire the side. Edgehouse went on to allow one run in the fifth inning and ran into trouble in the seventh. Wood Cross broke open what had been a close game in the top of the seventh with three runs to break a 7-7 tie and take a 10-7 lead.
At this point Cisneros summoned Jordan Moynier from third base to take over the pitching and the strong armed right-hander was up to the task to get credit for the win.Both teams came out hitting and racked up 11 two-base hits before it was over. Although records are not kept locally on such items, it probably was the first time such a high number of doubles were hit in one game on Gardner Field in Helper. Woods Cross had five and Helper six two baggers. Helper recorded 17 hits in the game and Woods Cross blasted 13.Blake Mortensen, Edgehouse, Marcus Zaccaria, Blue, Moynier and Sherman contributed the two-baggers for Helper. Sherman had a pair of doubles. Blue also had a home run in the first inning behind a triple by Wilde and a double by Sherman.Helper had four players selected to play in the annual legion all-star game played in Kearns Saturday night. Edgehouse, Sherman, Wilde and Zaccaria were named to the Blue team.
The Blue team lost to the Red team, 23-12. Next week there will be many chances to see the boys at home. They take on Granger on July 18 in a double header starting at 6:00 and 8:00. Then they will finish their game with West and play a whole game against them on Thursday night. This game was scheduled for Friday but will take place starting at 6:00 on Thursday. They will then have a rare weekend double header on Saturday against Beaver with games starting at 10:00 and 12:00.
All the games this week will be played in Helper.