| Senior pitcher Dylan Olson goes hard to home plate during last year’s regular season. Carbon’s Coach Moynier is hoping that this years tough opening road trip will straighten his team as the season goes on. |
Coach Troy Moynier knew the road trip was going to be tough. Every team the Dinos were set to face was either a good 4A or great 3A prospect. So when the Dinos came away with four losses down in Dixie, he wasn’t entirely disappointed in his team.
Carbon dropped their first game to Dixie in a close 4-2 loss. Then Tooele beat them 12-2. After that it was Wasatch and an 11-9 loss. Finally losing the final game against Grantsville, 8-4. Moynier felt like even if the final scores didn’t reflect it, his team competed with the big boys the entire time.
But fortunes turned this week as Carbon headed back to Moab for an 11-7 slug fest win and then to American Fork to conquer ALA 10-9.
Against Dixie, the hitting just didn’t come through. A key hit here or there would have made the difference in the game. Dylan Olsen was the starting pitcher and showed some good stuff in the innings he pitched. Moynier has his pitchers on a pitch count during the pre-season games and is using many different arms to complete each game.
With Tooele, the bats did come alive, but a very athletic Tooele team was able to run down solid hits to the outfield and cut off sure base hits in the infield. Carbon was not able to defend the same type of offense thrown at it. An early two run lead suddenly disappeared in the fourth but the Dinos held on until the sixth before the ten run rule kicked in. Greg Barker pitched well until the fourth when the wheels came off.
Carbon again took an early lead as they battled Wasatch. The Dinos were up 6-1 until the middle of the game and finally the bats from Wasatch woke up. Coach Moynier also felt like the team sat back on their heels a bit after holding the lead and let Wasatch back in it. Josh Denison got the starting nod on the mound n this game.
In the final game against Grantsville, they fell behind early and never quite recovered. Every time they would try to make up ground with a run, Granstville had an answer with a run of their own. Ron Herrera pitched four good innings and Austin Davis came in in relief.
Lance Deeter had solid games at the plate, with an on base percentage for the tournament of around 700. Against Wasatch; Ron Herrera, Nathan Martinez and Brandon Branch each smacked one over the fence. Tyler Bean was named to the All-tournament team for his defensive efforts behind the plate.
These pre-season games are meant to allow the team to learn and get the rust off. Moynier was a bit disappointed that they haven’t managed a win yet, but he is confident that they will find their stride and gel into a team with a little more practice and faith in themselves.
Carbon let themselves get in a 7-0 hole against Grand on Wednesday and then started to wake up. They shut down the Moab boys and slowly climbed back in the game. With a run here and two there they had it back to 5-7 as they headed into the sixth. Exploding with a big inning the Dinos posted six big ones to take the win.
Josh Dennison got the win on the mound for the Dinos. Branch, Anthony Kelley and Kaz Cook each hit a double as Carbon blasted in 11 runs on 14 hits.
Thursday saw the Dinos heading north to take on ALA and again they had to battle out of a big deficit. ALA scored six in the first two innings. The Dinos answered in the third with five. ALA scored again in the fourth. Carbon tied it up in the fifth. ALA regained the lead in the bottom of the sixth, but the bats of Carbon came through in the seventh to push three runs and a win across home.
The Dinos scored 10 runs on 10 hits. Herrera was the winning pitcher and hit a double. Branch also doubled again and Martinez and Beau Rich hit triples.
Next week the team travels to play Union before coming home on March 25 to meet up with ALA again.