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Mountain Home picks up two wins against Rangers
The Mountain Home Royals went 2-3 in American Legion baseball games last week.
Capitals 9, Royals 1
Capitals 13, Royals 8
The Mountain Home Royals dropped an American Legion baseball doubleheader to the Boise Capitals last Tuesday at Royals Field in Mountain Home, losing the first game, 9-1, and dropping the nightcap, 13-8.
In the first game, Boise's pitcher JT Graening had the Royals number, limiting Mountain Home to just two singles while striking out eight batters. Mountain Home's hits, a third inning single by Emer Castillo and a sixth inning single by David Welle, were the only two balls hit out of the infield as all outs were either ground-outs or strikeouts.
Bailey Miller-Hodge suffered the loss for the Royals in the first game, with just four of the seven runs he gave up earned in five innings of work. Skyler Knudson closed out the game for the Royals.
The second game saw the Capitals erupt for six runs in the second inning to take a 7-0 lead. Mountain Home managed to cut the deficit to three in the third inning but could come no closer as Boise held on for the win.
Jordan Lenz had a two-run double for the Royals in the nightcap, and Riley Woodland had a two-run single. Curran Price had an RBI-single, Esmer Castillo had a double and Luke Lockard, Bailey Miller-Hodge and Kyle Acarregui also had hits.
Price suffered the loss, getting tagged for 11 runs -- nine of them earned -- in nearly four innings of work. Kole Filipovich finished out the game for the Royals, limiting the Capitals to two unearned runs on two hits while striking out three batters.
The Boise Capitals have got to be toward the top of the league, said Mountain Home Royals head coach and manager Mike Hobgood.
"They swing the bats a ton," the coach said. "We didn't force them to do a whole bunch in that first game, but the second game we hit the ball a little bit and saw some of their weaknesses.
"We were right there until the end," the coach added. "It was just another one of those games where we let one of those innings get away from us in both games. But we have this knack of kind of battling back, and I think if we can teach them to extend that one inning to seven innings, there's no one we can't play with."
Royals 8, Rangers 5
Royals 4, Rangers 2
(Three innings)
The Royals swept the Meridian Rangers in a non-league doubleheader Thursday at Royals field, winning the first game, 8-5, and taking the nightcap, 4-2, in a game called after three innings because of lightning.
With a huge crowd of American Legion dignitaries on hand for the state convention, the Royals fed off the crowd to jump out to a 3-0 lead after an inning. They led 4-1, after three.
Meridian battled back to tie the game at 4 in the top of the fourth, but the Royals pushed across a run in the bottom of the inning to regain the lead, 5-4.
After Meridian tied the score at 5 in the top of the sixth, the Royals responded with three runs in the bottom of the sixth to go up, 8-5.
Jordan Lenz, who went the distance for the Royals set down the Rangers in the seventh to earn the win. Lenz scattered just three hits and struck out four batters. He also had two hits at the plate to help his cause. Riley Woodlan and Conor Lierke also had hits for Mountain Home.
Meridian jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning in the second game, but the Royals came back with four in the bottom half of the inning to take a 4-2 lead. Meridian had tied the game in the top of the fourth, but lightning caused the game to be stopped with the score reverted to 4-2 since Mountain Home didn't have their at-bat in the fourth.
David Welle had a triple, Esmer Castillo an RBI-single and Luke Lockard also had a hit in the second game. Riley Woodland picked up the win, scattering four hits while striking out four.
Coach Hobgood was pleased with his team's efforts on the night.
"I really felt like we dictated everything -- we got back into our game -- small ball, running bases," the coach said. "I think they had seven errors, and probably four or five of those were probably forced by virtue of us running the bases and forcing the issue, and we hit the ball well. Even in the second game, we came out and put the bat on the ball."
Gems 20, Royals 3
(Five innings)
Errors did the Mountain Home Royals on Friday night -- they had 10 of them, which led to 20 unearned runs for the Boise Gems -- as the Royals lost, 20-3, in five innings at Royals Field.
Mountain Home trailed 3-2 after two innings, but the Gems used five errors, three walks, three hit batters and five hits to score 13 runs in the third to go up, 16-2.
The Royals managed one run in the fourth, but Boise added four more in the fifth to make it a 20-3 final with the game ending by the 10-run mercy rule.
"Ten errors -- that's the story of the game," said Coach Hobgood after the game. "We had a chance to shut down some innings and keep ourselves in the ball game. Offensively, we were producing early, then, 10 errors, that's murder."
Mountain Home managed just four hits in the game. Bailey Miller-Hodge, Cody Simpson, Tyler Abernathy and Jordan Lenz each had singles. Miller-Hodge, the first of four Mountain Home pitchers to take the mound, suffered the loss.
The loss dropped the Royals to 3-17 in league play and 9-28 overall. Mountain Home closes out its regular season schedule this week, hosting Canyon Rige for two on Monday and traveling to Buhl for two on Thursday, both non-league opponents. The Area B Class A Tournament starts July 18.
"Those will be good for us, not having to worry about our record," Coach Hobgood said. "Hopefully, we can fix some things there and go into District on Saturday."