A Carbon Team is Second Again

By Sun Advocate

For the third consecutive year a WBBA all-star team from Carbon County fell victim to Alpine in the championship game of the “little world series” of Western Boys Baseball, The Alpine all-stars out lasted the Price National team Saturday afternoon, 9-7, in a slug fest at Washington Terrace to claim its fourth straight WBBA title,
The 1999 tournament staged at American Fork saw the Alpine team edge Helper by a 2-1 score in a classic eight-inning game, The following year it was the Northern Heights team from Price that was overwhelmed in the final game at Providence.
In the title game Saturday, Price National took a first inning 3-1 lead, scoring the three runs after two were out. Kyle Asay, third batter in the lineup, blasted a solo homer. Then four straight singles by Jordan Moynier, Bret Johnson, A, J. Mitcheson and Marcus Zaccaria produced two more runs.
Price National extended the lead to 5-1 in the top of the third frame when Moynier singled and Zaccaria hit a home run. Unfortunately, Alpine came right back to knot the score at 5-5 with four runs of their own in the home half of the third. The big hit for Alpine was a three-run homer by Brenden Smith.
Price National assumed the lead again in the top of the fourth when J.J. Blue singled and circled the bases on a series of wild pitches and passed balls by the Alpine battery.
The bottom half of the fourth proved to be disastrous for the Carbon team. Alpine put four more runs on the board, another three run homer, this time by C. J. Hunter giving the Utah County nine a 9-6 lead. Zaccaria hit another solo shot in the top of the fifth but that was the extent of the Price National scoring.
After the 12-1 shellacking of Kearns American the first day of the tournament, the semi-finals. This game took two days to complete, a sudden rain storm in the Ogden area hatted play after three complete innings of play with Price National holding a 31-0 lead. The final three innings were played on Saturday morning with Price National adding three more runs while holding American Fork to a single run.
It took four Price National pitchers to hold off the strong Washington Terrace team in the Wednesday game, Moynier hurled the first three innings, followed by Brett Johnson, then A- J. Mitcheson and finally Kyle Asay. Asay gave the Price team an early lead with a three-run homer in the initial frame. The fourth run came in the third inning when J. J. Blue hit a home run. The final run came in the fifth frame, Moynier leading off with a single and eventually scoring on Willy Hill’s fielder’s choice.
A grand slam by Zaccaria in the fourth inning of the Thursday game with Ammon, Ida. broke what had been a tight game wide open. Ammon held a 2-1 lead going into the fourth, the Price National run coming on Asay’s home run in the first inning. The winners added three more runs in the fifth inning to put the game out of reach for the Idaho nine. A hit bats man, singles by Moynier and Blue, plus an outfield error by Ammon accounted for the runs. Asay and Johnson shared the mound duties in this game, limiting Ammon to just three hits,
Price National took the 3-0 lead over American Fork late Friday afternoon before the rains came. A single run in the first inning came on a balk committed by the American Fork pitcher, reminiscent of the high school title game in St, George last May. Asay was on third base when he was waved home on the balk and in the third inning he slammed a two run homer, Brady Wilde being on base via a walk. When play was resumed on Saturday morning back-to-back home runs by Moynier and Blue put three more runs on the board for a 6-0 lead. Zac Laycock, the pitcher guilty of the balk, redeemed himself somewhat by hitting a home run in the final inning for American Fork.
Mitcheson and Asay each hurled three innings in this game, the former allowing one hit and the latter two.