Pinnacle Baseball Overpowers Diamond Ranch

Pinnacle’s Christian McLane throws a pitch in the first inning in a win against Diamond Ranch Academy (Photo Credit: Loren Miller)
Pinnacle baseball defeated the Diamond Ranch Diamondbacks 13-3 on Wednesday at home. 
The game started out slow for both teams as only one run crossed home plate in the first two innings.
On the mound pitching for the Panthers to start the game was Christian McLean.
He along with the Panther defense behind had a great game on Wednesday according to Pinnacle Head Coach Eric Hansen.
“Christian did a great job. He is one of our best pitchers and we put him in and he did what he was supposed to do. He pitched strikes and got a lot of ground balls. He had his defense back him up and he did what he need to do,” said Hansen.
With two outs in the top of the third inning, the Diamondbacks finally broke through and added a run off a base hit to tie the game at 1-1.
Two batters later the Diamondbacks added another run to take the lead 2-1 heading into the bottom of the third.
In the bottom of the third the bats finally came alive for the Panthers as they took the lead with two-out single by McLean that drove in two runs.
Hansen said after the game that nerves of playing at home in front of the home crowd was what was holding the Panthers back before they took the lead in the third inning.
“They stopped being nervous. When you play at home, your classmates, teachers, parents are here and it was a pitcher they hadn’t seen before. You got to get used to the pitcher and when they saw pitcher once thats when they started to hit the ball,” said Hansen.
Pinnacle’s bats would continue to hit the ball in the fourth inning as they built their lead to 5-2 off a Stetson Motte two-out double that brought home two runners.
The Panthers would make a pitching change in the top of the fifth as Zach Gibson would come in for relief.
Diamond Ranch would add a run and fail to score more with the bases loaded.
In the bottom of the fifth the Panthers really separated themselves from the Diamondbacks as they scored seven runs.
“We just came off a crappy top of the fifth defensively . I pulled them aside and told them ‘that inning is in the past and we need to hit the ball’. They did what they were supposed to and everything we went over in practice, they drove the ball into open spots and we scored,” said Coach Hansen.
The entire batting order got a chance to hit in the fifth inning for the Panthers with hits coming from Jaxson Carlisle, Mikey Vigil, Riley Wilson, Michael Schmitz, Shayden Christensen and McLean.
Gibson would pitch a stellar sixth inning and not allow a run setting up the bottom of the sixth for the Panthers to 10-run rule the Diamondbacks.
Schmitz would score for Pinnacle stealing home on a passed ball by Diamond Ranch to seal the win for Pinnacle.
The Panthers are now 4-5 in the Region 19 standings, one spot behind Piute for fourth place.
Pinnacle will host Piute on Friday at 3 p.m. at the USU Eastern baseball field in a must win game for playoff positioning. 
“Its very important, we are sitting in the lower part of the standings. We need to get at least two or three more wins to move up so we can avoid having to play in a play-in game for State Playoffs,” said Hansen.
The Panthers have three more Region 19 games left after Friday’s game including two next week, to move up in the standings.
The 1A State Playoffs begin on September 29 with opening round games in Spanish Fork.