Royals win district opener

The Mountain Home Royals closed out their regular season American Legion schedule with a sweep of the Kuna Diamondbacks, and opened district play with a win over Centennial.

Royals 14, Diamondbacks 11

Royals 16, Diamondbacks 6

It took a little longer than expected, but the Mountain Home Royals ended their regular season with a league sweep of the Kuna Diamondbacks last week.

They won the first game 14-11 Monday night, but the second game was suspended because of darkness when crews were unable to get the ballfield lights turned on. It was resumed Wednesday afternoon with the Royals batting in the bottom of the fourth inning, up 8-5. They went on to win 16-6 in five innings.

In the first game, the Royals overcame a 4-1 deficit with back-to-back four-run innings to shoot out to a 9-4 lead after four innings and led 14-7 heading into the seventh, holding off the Diamondbacks for a 14-11 win.

Ronny Young, Skylar Quintal and Alex Burke had the big bats for the Royals, each getting two hits and knocking in two runs, Burke getting a double. Alex Rodriguez and Jesse Rodriguez both had RBI-doubles, Austin Bodily had an RBI-single, Danny Brescia had a double and Jake Hennessey and Joe Gutierrez also had hits.

Gage Curtis picked up the win to improve to 3-2 on the season and Skylar Quintal picked up his second save of the season.

In the second game, the Royals jumped out to a 7-0 lead after one, but Kuna scored four in the second.

The Royals led 8-5 heading into the bottom of the fourth inning when the game was suspended because of darkness.

When play was resumed Wednesday afternoon, the Royals scored one run in the bottom of the fourth and ended the game by the 10-run rule with a seven-run fifth to win it 16-6.

Royals head coach Alex Hoffman was pleased to be heading into the district tourney off a sweep of the Diamondbacks.

"That last game I think was a testament to how good we can be," the coach said. "I don't think we necessarily showed up to play our best game of baseball, but we still managed to run the bases and take advantage of some things and ultimately, it showed, wrapping it up real quick."

The Royals pounded out 17 hits in the second game. Danny Brescia had three hits, including a double, and drove in two runs. Austin Bodily, Skylar Quintal, Ronny Young, Gage Curtis, and Jake Hennessey all had two hits. Bodily had a triple and three RBIs, Young had an inside-the-park home run and three RBIs, and Hennessey drove in two runs. Alex Rodriguez had an RBI-triple and Skyler Podesek had an RBI-single. Ryan Ichiyama and Joe Gutierrez also had hits and John Kennison had an RBI.

Ronny Young, the second of three Royals pitchers, picked up the win to improve to 1-1 on the season.

The sweep puts the Royals at 20-9 on the season and 15-5 in Eastern Division play.

The Area B Eastern Division Tournament started Saturday at Centennial.

Royals 7, Cannons 3

The Royals 15-5 league record earned them the number three seed going into the district tourney. They opened play Saturday night at Centennial against the sixth-seeded Centennial Cannons, coming away with a 7-3 win.

The Royals took advantage of four Centennial errors to build up a 4-0 lead after four innings. After Centennial scored a run in to the top of the sixth, Mountain Home got four hits in the bottom of the inning to score three runs to up their lead to 7-1.

The Cannons scored two unearned runs in the top of the seventh, but Royals ace Jared Day got out of the inning without any further damage to improve to 5-0 on the season, the Royals winning 7-3.

Coach Hoffman was pleased to open the district tourney with a win.

"We came in here not necessarily underestimating Centennial, but looking at some of the things they didn't do up to par when we played them," the coach said. "We kind of tried to make our philosophy about beating them that way, but they came out here today and showed what district is (about)."

The Royals pounded out 12 hits in the game. Ronny Young, Skyler Podesek, Skylar Quintal, and Danny Brescia each had two hits. Young had a double and RBI and Quintal scored two runs. Austin Bodily had an RBI-double, Jesse Rodriguez had an RBI-single, Jake Hennessey had a double and Alex Rodriguez also had a hit.

The win put the Royals in the quarter-finals on Monday against the winner of Sunday night's game between the Boise Senators and the Mountain View Toros.