Baseball Clinches 3A Title, Again

By Sun Advocate

In an outstanding victory over Pine View, 10-3, the Carbon High Dinos brought home their fourth 3A state championship trophy of the year on Saturday night.
After a great year for Carbon High sports, four new championship trophies have found their home in the trophy cases at Carbon High.
The girls basketball, volleyball and boys diving championship trophies were joined by the baseball state championship trophy on Monday after an assembly at Carbon High where the baseball team presented Principal Robert Cox with the new addition.
The Dinos stayed ahead the whole time in the tournament, which began on Thursday, May 12.
Carbon traveled to St. George for a tournament that would turn out better than every Dino fan could have ever imagined.
The Dinos stayed in the winner’s bracket the entire tournament and sent Pine View and Wasatch home without a win.
Carbon first went up against the Wasatch Wasps on Thursday at Bruce Hurst field at Dixie College. Carbon started off with a great first inning by completing three runs.
They came back out at the top of the second and completed another two runs while Wasatch was unable to score any.
Mike Zaccaria scored an amazing two-run triple while Joe Via made a heroic sacrifice-fly for the team.
With a demanding five run lead after just two innings, the game seemed to be another win for the Dinos already.

At the top of the fourth inning, Carbon completed three more runs to Wasatch’s zero, bringing the score to 8-0 at the end of the fourth.
The top of the fifth inning saw no runs for Carbon, but in an unbelievable turn of events, Wasatch came out in the bottom of the fifth and completed seven runs. Wasatch Wasp, Parker Sweat, completed a grand slam for the Wasps while Guy Mecham ended the inning with a home run behind him.
With the determination of the unstoppable team they are, Carbon High came back out in the sixth inning and scored two runs bringing their lead on Wasatch to 10-7.
Both Zaccaria and Adam Martinez drove in runs in the sixth. Tyler Nelson and Chris Hatch both scored doubles in the game, while Zaccaria scored an amazing triple.
After a win against Dixie on Thursday, Pine View had the honor of going up against Carbon on Friday. Friday the 13th turned out to have good luck in store for Carbon High, who defeated Pine View easily with a 5-1 win.
Carbon started off the game with two runs in the top of the first.
Pine View came out in the bottom of the first and completed their only run of the entire game.
The Dinos also came out in the second and scored another run bringing them to a 3-1 lead on the Panthers.
With a two run lead on Pine View, the Dinos came out in the fourth and fifth innings and scored one run in each inning. The game could have been called at this point, the Dinos keeping Pine View from completing any more runs with excellent pitching from Martinez. Martinez pitched a complete game for Carbon and only allowed three hits.
With a loss against Carbon, the Pine View Panthers dropped down to the losers bracket, but made it back to the championship game with a 10-3 win against Wasatch on Saturday morning.
After winning against Wasatch at 9 a.m., Pine View went up against the Dinos soon after at 11:30 in the championship game.
The game started off slow, neither team scoring until the third inning, where Pine View came out and completed one run after a sacrifice-fly from Tyson Littlewood.
The Dinos came back and dominated the bottom of the third inning with an amazing six runs.
Martinez and Cameron Oliver each had singles to start the inning, but nothing would compare to the base-clearing three-RBI double in the third by Nick Nielsen, which helped put Carbon ahead 6-1.
Pine View came back out in the fourth with the determination to take the lead, but only completed one run.

At the bottom of the fourth, Carbon came out and completed another run on Via’s RBI-single, keeping a sturdy lead of 7-2 on Pine View.
The Panthers found it impossible to score any runs in the fifth inning with the excellent pitching provided by Martinez.
Carbon’s lead went from 7-2 to 11-2 after Martinez had an RBI-single and Carbon High sophomore, Sandoval, hit an amazing two-run home run at the bottom of the fifth.
After some attitude from Pine View’s Jessie Ence, who argued with Sandoval and Carbon fans near the third base line after this play, fans on the first and third base line were forced to back off the railing. This didn’t stop Carbon fans from supporting their team from the stands, who with a little inspiration from Assistant Coach Bruce Bean, cheered even louder for the Dinos.
Pine View still tried to take the lead at the top of the sixth, but were only able to score one run in the entire inning.
Unable to score any runs in the top of the seventh, the Panthers handed Carbon a win of 11-3.
Undeniably, Adam Martinez was one star of the game becoming MVP. Martinez completed 14 complete innings in just two days and only gave up three runs in the championship game.
Every other member of the team stood out in their own way during the tournament, and without the strong teamwork, wouldn’t have gotten this far in the tournament.
Carbon seemed to be the most dominating team in the championship with an undeniably strong set of coaches, including Head Coach Lane Herrick, who coached Carbon High to it’s second championship title in four years.
The Dinos end the season in a great place with 16 wins in a row, but will lose eight seniors from this year’s team who will all hopefully move on to play at college level. This year’s outstanding seniors includ Joe Via, Cameron Oliver, Chris Hanson, Nick Nielsen, Tyler Nelson, Chris Hatch, Dustin Howa and Mike Zaccaria.
The team will still have some incredible players from this year.
Aaron Sandoval who is only a sophomore should be back for two more incredible seasons, while juniors, Adam Martinez and Chase Julian will be back for one more season.