Tigers end regular season splitting games over Skyview

The Mountain Home Tigers came away with a split of their conference baseball series with Skyview to end the regular season.

Hawks 12

Tigers 10

The Skyview Hawks scored 11 runs in the seventh inning to battle back to defeat the Mountain Home Tigers, 12-10, Tuesday at Tiger Field.

Mountain Home pounded out 13 hits in the ball game, and built up a 10-1 lead heading into the seventh inning.

That's when the wheels seemed to come off for the Tigers.

Gabe Anderson, who had scattered three hits and had nine strikeouts through six innings, gave up a walk, a single and a home run to start the seventh.

Anthony Castillo then came on to pitch and faced five batters. He hit the first one, the second one reached on an error, and then three straight seeing-eye hits chased him, and on came Eric Christiansen.

A potential double-play ground ball was booted, loading the bases. The next batter walked, bringing in a run. A single plated two more. Before the inning was over, the Hawks had sent 15 batters to the plate and scored 11 runs to take the lead, 12-10.

The Tigers tried to rally in the bottom of the seventh, and had two runners on, but failed to score, losing to the Hawks 12-10.

Mountain Home Tiger baseball coach Travis DeVore agreed, it was a tough game to see get away from them.

"Yeah! We played as good as we've played all year for six innings, and then the game gets away from us there in the seventh, and a lot of that is because of Skyview's effort. They were absolutely hitting the ball, fighting off good pitches and dumping them in.

"It's an upsetting loss for the seniors, especially, and certainly I feel for them, because Gabe threw an outstanding game, and up and down the lineup, guys were hitting the ball hard -- Logan had a couple big hits for us, and Trevor, obviously with his first home run of the season -- it was a heartbreaker, and it just seemed like anything that could go wrong was going wrong in that last inning, where the rest of the game everything was going right."

Ricky Baker had three hits for the Tigers, including a triple, and knocked in three runs. Ricky Lee, Gabe Anderson and Logan Monasterio each had two hits, Lee and Monasterio both had doubles, Lee scored three runs, Monasterio and Anderson both had RBIs. Trevor Woodruff had a two-run home run and drove in three runs, Eric Christiansen, Chris Maholick and Robert Vanderpool also had hits, Christiansen and Maholick had RBIs.

Seniors Ricky Lee, Gabe Anderson, Ricky Baker, Robert Vanderpool, Logan Monasterio, Chris Maholick and Shawn Lewis were honored before the game.

Tigers 6

Hawks 4

Mountain Home regrouped and came back strong against the Hawks Wednesday at Skyview, holding off the Hawks 6-4.

The Tigers put together three hits, a walk and a hit batter to score five runs in the second inning against the Hawks, which was more than enough for Trevor Woodruff, who scattered eight hits to pick up his first win in five decisions.

"Trevor threw great for us tonight, and really located down the whole night, and that contributed to his success, and he threw a great game. I was proud of the team as a whole, because they were fired up in the dugout the whole game, they did not lie down after last night's game, and probably, in terms of rebounding from a really tough loss, that's as proud as I've been of the team all year."

Ricky Lee had two hits, scored two runs and knocked in two runs. Ricky Baker and David Bitrick both had hits and RBIs, and Trevor Woodruff, Tom Hennessey and Jake Hennessey also had hits.

With the win, the Tigers finished 7-7 in conference play, tied for fourth with Columbia, but they get the fifth spot since Columbia swept them. Mountain Home opened the District Tournament yesterday at Nampa against Columbia.

Coach DeVore hopes his Tigers can play consistent baseball at district and make it to state next week.

"We go into the district tourney knowing that it's going to be us making things happen. If we come and we're excited like we were today (at Skyview), we can beat anyone in the conference."