| Joe Via races for third base. |
A Monday (June 19) night road trip to Woods Cross was rescheduled due to problems with the field.
But nonetheless the Helper American League Baseball team continued its scheduled play on Wednesday (June 21) taking on a tough Taylorsville team.
That was a trip the team wishes to forget.
Kyler Edgehouse took the mound for Helper and was pitching well until the third inning. Taylorsville got his number in the third as they teed off on his pitching.
Brett Johnson was brought in to relieve Edgehouse and was able to finish, but the damage had been done. Taylorsville took a close 2-1 lead into the third and broke the game wide open with seven runs.
Helper had a good fifth inning, pushing five runs of their own across the plate, but that fell short of the 12 Taylorsville sent home in the game. Helper lost 12-6.
Thirteen Helper runners were left stranded in the game. They left one stranded on third base in every inning. The failure of the team to move the runners’ home cost the team its victory.
Joe Via went 2-4 on the night. He had a triple and a home run, Mike Zaccaria also went 2-4 on the night.
Friday night (June 23) the team was home in the friendly confines to regain their winning ways. Murray was the opponent that evening.
Each team scored in the first. Murray did it with a homer from their lead off batter. Helper had a triple from Aaron Sandoval, their lead-off hitter. He moved home a few batters later.
Helper was next to draw blood in the third with two runs. Murray made their big push in the fifth with a four run flurry to take the lead. Helper, still stinging from the loss earlier in the week, was not going to go down quietly. When they came up in the bottom of the sixth they put six on the board to finish off Murray 9-5.
Marcus Zaccaria led the scoring effort in the sixth with a double.
A trip to Hunter (June 26) on Monday was next up. Hunter jumped on starting pitcher Ron Herrera for two runs in the first.
Taking no chances, Coach Jeff Cisneros brought in reliever Blake Mortensen to shut Hunter down. That is exactly what he did. Hunter did not score the rest of the evening.
Helper was quiet at the plate for the first two innings, but when their bats woke up, they did with a vengeance. They sent twelve runners across home in the third inning alone. They followed that up with a two run fourth.
Trevor Thompson went 2-2 and Joe Via had three RBI’s on the night. JD Sherman and Mike Zaccaria each hit a pair of doubles. Zaccaria’s produced three RBI’s as well. Kyle Esquibel also had a good night at the plate, going 2-3.
Helper now sits tied for fifth in a tight league. They are only one game in back of Kearns and Taylorsville. Tooele and Cyprus are tied for third only a half game back of the leaders. The loss to Taylorsville was the difference between tied for fifth and first.