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| Nathan Martinez and Brandon Brand collide as they attempt to catch a pop fly. The catch was made and the Spartan batter was retired. |
It was a game worth waiting for. The Carbon Emery match-up that was supposed to have taken place last Thursday was everything a rivalry game was supposed to be.
Emery squeeked out an extra inning, 13-11 victory over the Dinos to move themselves into second place in region eight play. Carbon remained in fourth, even after the loss.
The Spartans set the tone for the game with a lead off blast over the fence to make it 1-0 before the players had even settled in. They added three in the second as they took advantage of control problems from Carbon pitcher Ron Herrera.
But Emery found a few control problems of their own in the bottom of the second as Carbon capitalized and sent five across of their own to take a 5-4 lead.
The Spartans regained the lead in the third and kept their two run advantage until the fifth. The Dinos tied it up with a pair in the bottom half of their inning. They just couldn’t hold the lead and they gave back two to the Spartans in the top half of the sixth.
However, the momentum moved back to Carbon as they posted one in the sixth and another in the seventh to tie it up. The Dinos were in position to beat Emery, but failed to get the key hit to move one more across. Regulation play ended with a Dino left stranded.
As they moved on the extra inning action, neither team wanted to give in and the eight ended in another stalemate. In the ninth Emery scored four to take the lead for good. The Dinos pushed a pair across, but again could not get the hits when they needed them and the game ended with them trailing by two.
Even the normally laid back Coach Moynier was affected by the play, “Oh man! It was quite the game,” he opened his post game interview. He knew his team had nothing to lose as they played the Spartans, but Emery had a lot to gain.
“It was a team effort. I changed the line-up and started the seniors, but almost everyone sitting on the bench got a chance to play.”
Even though the lack of clutch hitting at the end of the game helped the Dinos go down for a loss; Moynier told his team that a key hit here or there in the early going could have made a big difference in the outcome as well. “We got a lot of great pitching to keep us in the game,” he added.
Carbon heads down to start tournament play against Cedar City this weekend. Since the baseball tournament is a true double elimination, the Dinos need only to post one win over the weekend to move on to the next round. The 3A tournament will finish up in Ogden the following weekend.