Broken bat singles aren't altogether uncommon in the major leagues, but Ryan Jensen's third inning hit in the 4A High School All-Star Game Wednesday night was an oddity.
Jensen, a Cottonwood High standout, shattered his bat on a single to right-center for the North All-Stars in the third. He eventually came around to score what proved to be the winning run in the 4-3 ball game. What was so unusual was that the bat Jensen shattered was aluminum. Half the bat flew to the left of the pitcher's mound, while the other half remained in Jensen's hands."In all my years in baseball I've never seen an aluminum bat break like that," said Skyline coach Rocky Lambourne, who served as the North's skipper Wednesday night. "It looked like a wooden bat the way it exploded. It just shows what a big, strong kid Jensen is."
"I hit the ball as hard as I could, and the bat just broke," Jensen said.
Jensen went 2-for-4 with a double, RBI and scored a run. He also pitched the final three innings to help preserve the lead for the North, which was made up of stars from Regions 1 and 2.
Jensen was runner-up in the MVP voting to Viewmont High's Kyle Day, who was the game's most dominant pitcher. Day struck out five batters and gave up no runs in three innings of work.
"The pitching was good for both teams," Lambourne said. "Day threw strikes and did a nice job changing speeds, which is what you have to do against hitters of that caliber."
The North jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning with a leadoff double by Layton's Wylee Strong and Jensen's RBI double being the big blows. The South scored in the bottom of the first whan a Mark Normand (Pleasant Grove) single drove in Taylorsville's Glen Spencer.
Jake Raymond, of Roy, hit a sacrifice fly in the second to give the North a 3-1 lead. In the third, Jensen, after his broken-bat single, came around to score on a South fielding error to give the North a 4-1 advantage.
The South appeared to have knotted the score at 4-4 in the bottom of the eighth when Kearns' Travis Johnson slid under the tag of Weber's Ben Howell at home. Johnson, however, missed the plate and was called out after heading back to the dugout thinking he had scored.
The 3A All-Star Game is scheduled for tonight at 7 p.m at Ogden's Serge Simmons field.