Royals sweep Diamondbacks

Two splits and a sweep marked last week for the Mountain Home Royals in six games of American Legion baseball.

The Royals split doubleheaders with the Boise Gems and Centennial Cannons, and swept two from the Kuna Diamondbacks.

Royals 13, Gems 11

Royals 0, Gems 4

The Mountain Home Royals managed a split in their American Legion league doubleheader with the Boise Gems last Monday night at Royals Field in Mountain Home, taking the first game 13-11 but dropping the second 4-0.

In the first game, it looked like errors were going to do Mountain Home in, as the Gems scored seven unearned runs to build up a 10-2 lead in the top of the third inning, but Mountain Home sent 16 batters to the plate in the bottom of the third and scored 11 runs to take a 13-10 lead.

The Gems got within two, 13-11, with a run in the fourth, but Jesse Rodriguez shut out the Gems the rest of the way for a 13-11 win.

"Our defense started out shaky, and it was tough for our pitchers to adjust to that rain that we had going, but their guys were going through the same thing, and we showed class," said Royals head coach and manager Alex Hoffman.

Jesse Rodriguez, Skylar Quintal and John Kennison each had two hits for the Royals in the first game. Rodriguez drove in three runs, Quintal and Kennison both had one RBI and Quintal scored three times. Zach Petersen, Danny Brescia, Cody Blakemore and Levi Abrahamson all had hits and RBIs. Jesse Cobos and Teddy Reaume also had RBIs.

Jesse Rodriguez picked up the win in relief to improve to 3-0 on the season.

The nightcap was a pitching duel between Mountain Home's Zach Petersen and Boise's Payton Harris, and was scoreless until the Gems put together three of their five hits to score four runs.

Danny Brescia's infield hit in the top of the seventh was the best the Royals could do off Harris, as the Royals did have occasional base runners but couldn't get hits when they needed to produce some runs, losing 4-0.

"When you have those pitching duels like that, you know there's only going to be one that comes out on top, and it just so happened to be the Gems, doing what they had to do to score some runs," said Coach Hoffman. "We didn't get the hits that we needed, and when we did get guys on, I did a pretty bad job of keeping them on, and those are my mistakes."

Zach Petersen scattered five hits in the loss, which drops him to 1-2 on the season.

Royals 11, Centennial 9

Royals 4, Centennial 5

The Royals came away with a split of a league doubleheader at Centennial High School in Meridian Friday night, winning the first game 11-9 in eight innings, but dropping the nightcap 5-4.

Mountain Home built up a 9-0 lead in the third inning of the first game and it looked like the Royals would cruise, but they would not score again until the game went extra innings.

A five-run fifth inning by the Cannons made it 9-6. They added two in the sixth and scored an unearned run in the bottom of the seventh to send the game into extra innings.

Mountain Home responded in the top of the eight with two unearned runs to retain the lead, 11-9.

Jesse Cobos came on to pitch the eighth and shut down the Cannons to preserve the win for the Royals.

Coach Hoffman was happy to get the win.

"It's apparent that we're in times when we're learning still -- we're learning from each other, and we let them come back, but I'm pleased in the fact we were able to battle back and win and not lose a nine-run lead."

Zach Petersen and Jace Bennett led the Royals at the plate with three hits apiece. Petersen had a double, three RBIs and scored three runs. Bennett also knocked in a run. Danny Brescia, Jesse Cobos, Jesse Rodriguez and Bailey Miller-Hodge each had a double. Brescia and Cobos drove in two runs. John Kennison also had a hit and scored three runs.

Jesse Rodriguez, who relieved Royals starter Levi Abrahamson in the fifth, picked up the win to improve to 4-0. Jesse Cobos pitched a scoreless eighth to record his first save.

Mountain Home jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning of the second game. The Cannons tied it at 3-3 in the second inning.

The Royals regained the lead, 4-3, in the third inning and the lead held up until Centennial tied it at 4-4 in the sixth.

The Cannons then scored the winning run on a throwing error in the bottom of the seventh to win, 5-4.

"It always stinks to take a loss, especially when you feel you're in the driver's seat," said Coach Hoffman. "But at the same time, watching it from a coach's standpoint, we didn't do all the things that we needed to do right. We had a lot of mistakes, but some of them ended up working in our favor."

The Royals managed just four hits in the second game. Jesse Rodriguez had a two-run double and John Kennison, Zach Petersen and Danny Brescia also had hits.

John Kennison, who relieved Jesse Cobos in the sixth, suffered the loss to drop to 1-1 on the season.

Royals 16, Diamondbacks 3

Royals 19, Diamondbacks 2

The Royals took advantage of Kuna errors and used timely hitting and good pitching to sweep the Diamondbacks Saturday afternoon at Royals Field in Mountain Home.

Mountain Home sent 14 batters to the plate in the first inning, scoring 10 runs on their way to a 16-3 five-inning win.

The Royals pounded out 15 hits in the win, led by Jace Bennett who had four hits, scored two runs and drove in one. John Kennison, Zach Petersen, Jesse Cobos, Cody Blakemore and Teddy Reaume each had two hits. Blakemore had a double and four RBIs, Petersen had a double and two RBIs. Kennison drove in two runs and scored three and Cobos had a double and drove in a run. Bailey Miller Hodge had hit and RBI and scored two runs.

Zach Petersen went the distance, scattering two hits and striking out seven to improve to 2-2 on the season.

The Royals scored four runs in the first inning in the second game, and put it out of reach with 11 runs in the second, one their way to a 19-2 five-inning win.

Coach Hoffman was glad to see his team come out and take care of business and get the sweep.

"That's something we needed, to come out and learn how to put teams to bed, and what I mean by that is to go out and continue to score runs and execute and hit the ball hard," the coach said. "The most important thing out of today's sweep is we had pitchers throw strikes all day, and we didn't give up too many unearned runs. Defensively, we didn't get lazy because we were up, we played loose, and to hold a team to five runs in two games, that's not too bad."

Jesse Cobos had three hits, including a triple and drove in three runs. Zach Petersen, Danny Brescia and Levi Abrahamson each had two hits. Petersen had a double and scored four runs, Brescia had a double, three RBIs and scored three runs, and Abrahamson knocked in two runs. Tyler McCall and Jace Bennett both had RBI-singles and Bailey Miller-Hodge also had an RBI. John Kennison went the distance to notch his second win in three decisions, striking out four and scattering five hits.

The Royals improved to 10-2 in league play and 13-5 overall. They are home for two today, July 3, against the Boise Seminoles, starting at 4:30 p.m. They host Middleton for a single game at 7 p.m. Friday and are home against the Boise Capitals for two starting at 5 p.m. Tuesday.