Thursday morning marked the beginning of 2A softball’s second round of tournament play. It pitted No. 1 Duchesne with No. 8 Millard, No. 2 Gunnison Valley against No. 7 North Sevier, No. 3 Beaver with No. 6 Parowan, with No. 4 Enterprise and No. 5 Altamont rounding out the day.
Each of the higher seeds advanced to the quarterfinals with Duchesne picking up a 10-0 win over Millard, Gunnison Valley blasting North Sevier 16-6, Beaver taking down Parowan 10-3, and Enterprise defeating Altamont 17-7.
Duchesne combined good defense with a balanced offensive attack to overwhelm Millard. The top-seeded Eagles only needed five innings to go up by 10, forcing the mercy rule to come into play, and be awarded the victory. Duchesne used 14 hits to score in every inning but one, putting its impressive bats on display.
Charles Woodhouse, the victorious Eagle head coach, felt his team had a lot to prove. “We’ve got to limit the distractions. The girls have been focused all year, they’ve kind of played with a chip on their shoulder because they haven’t been respected,” he said. “They’ve earned the right to be respected. We beat a pretty good Beaver team earlier; we beat a pretty good Gunnison team earlier and still people won’t give us credit because we’re from the north. So we’ve had a chip on our shoulder and played with that chip and that’s kept (our) focus.”
Duchesne was not the only team focused on what is at stake. Gunnison Valley repeatedly cycled through its batting order, overwhelming North Sevier and scoring 13 runs in the first three innings. The Bulldogs finished with 16 runs for the second straight game of the tournament, pushing their way into the quarterfinals after just five innings against the Wolves.
Gunnison Valley will face off against Beaver in the quarterfinals. Beaver overcame a 0-2 deficit to take down Parowan and advance into its bout with the Bulldogs. The Beavers coupled bats with defense, taking control of the game and holding the Rams to just one point after the first.
“We’ve got to limit the distractions. The girls have been focused all year, they’ve kind of played with a chip on their shoulder because they haven’t been respected.” — Duchesne coach Charles Woodhouse
Enterprise, the highest scoring team of the round, put 14 total runs on the board in its final two innings, forcing the game to end in the fifth. Wolves’ Freshman Brooke Humphries hit a home run in the fourth — the inning that saw Enterprise take the lead and never look back.
Enterprise head coach Katye Jones was not surprised when the Wolves’ offense came alive in the fourth. “Our team has had drive for the longest time. They just keep pushing. Most our runs come with two outs. They never give up.”
The Wolves hope to continue scoring at the same rate against Duchesne tomorrow. “We have to play pretty much perfect, play to our best ability,” Jones said. “We’ve got to clean up on our errors, and pitching, we’ve got to hit our spots.”
Jones’ squad will play the Eagles tomorrow morning. Playing simultaneously in an adjacent field will be Gunnison Valley and Beaver. Both games are set for 10 a.m. with winners facing off at 2:30 p.m.