RIVERTON — You never know exactly what you're going to get when your team plays its first game of the year, but for Riverton baseball coach Jay Applegate, what he saw in his team's 6-2 win over Taylorsville on Tuesday was relatively satisfying.
The Silverwolves slugged through a sketchy start to win comfortably while seeing plenty of positive things from a variety of players.
"We're a really young team coming into the year, so we're trying to get a lot of kids in different spots early on and see how they do," Applegate said. "We were able to do that today and I think this was a pretty positive step for us."
The first player Applegate saw in earnest on Tuesday was pitcher Zach Fitch, who got the starting nod, and was able to pitch his way out of a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the first inning, allowing only one unearned run.
"Getting out of that inning while giving up just one run was a big thing for us, I thought," Applegate said. "I feel it gave us some good momentum getting through a tight situation like that."
Riverton used whatever momentum was gained in the top of the first to bring home three runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning. Three straight RBI singles from Quinn Robbins, Erik Nelson and Fitch provided a nice cushion going forward.
Scoring was temporarily halted by both sides until the bottom of the fifth when Riverton's Caden Carr belted an RBI single and Skyler Davis hit a two-run RBI double that came just short of leaving the center-field wall. Those three runs made the score 6-1 for the Silverwolves entering the final two innings.
From there the Silverwolves yielded just one more run, on an RBI single from Taylorsville shortstop Austin Buttenob in the top of the sixth, to make the final score 6-2.
"To use all the guys we did and to just give up two runs is a big positive for our pitchers," Applegate said. "We really have just one experienced pitcher returning this year, so hopefully we take some confidence from this and keep improving from here."
Next up for Riverton is a game against rival Bingham on Saturday. For Taylorsville, which fell to 0-3 on the early season, next up is Juan Diego on March 17.
Email: bgurney@desnews.com
Twitter: @BrandonCGurney