High school baseball: Desert Hills, Snow Canyon, Provo and Crimson Cliffs get crucial wins in 4A tournament

Here’s a recap of Tuesday’s 4A state baseball tournament at Kearns High School.

Desert Hills 12, Bear River 6

After falling behind by 3 runs in the opening innings against #6 Bear River, #2 Desert Hills was tacked on run of run in the innings that followed, and the Desert Hills offense overwhelmed Bear River and got the 12-6 victory in bracket play of the 4A state tournament.

Desert Hills was led offensively by Cohen Fuller, who had a home run and drove in 5 runs in the victory.

Hoyt Atkin was dominant on the mound for Deseret Hills, pitching 5 innings and striking out 6 to get the win.

“We love putting up runs when we’re in the hole. We just have a good team that will compete, and they like to do it. Being down 3 runs in the 1st and then tacking on 2 on, and then 2, and 2, and 2, and 2, and three. That’s just shows what kind of program we have,” said Desert Hills head coach Jagun Leavitt.

Watching the offense score run after run eliminated some of the pressure that the players might have been feeling on the mound and out in the field.

“Scoring runs early and often makes it easier for a pitcher for sure. Hoyt, he’s always confident. Just giving him a little bit more, that’s what really makes him pitch very well. He does a great job. We trust him, he’s a senior and he’s a great kid,” said Leavitt.

Desert Hills has started out the 4a tournament just about as good as they could have hoped, and Leavitt knows that in order for them to continue playing good ball, they will need to build on the momentum that they currently have and be ready to answer back when they fall behind.

“We’re one game at a time, obviously. But we’re just really big on momentum. We get momentum, we want to keep it. You know, if they get some momentum, like a double play, or, you know, throwing a runner out, we want to try to punch him back. They throw us out, and then the next inning, we score a run, get some more runs back,” said Leavitt.

Leavitt knows that the teams are only just going to get tougher as they get deeper into the tournament and he believes his team is ready for what’s to come.

“We’re going to see great pitching. But we trust the bats that we have that we know and we’re confident that it doesn’t matter what the score is, we can still tack on some more runs.”

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Snow Canyon 16, Ridgeline 9

In somewhat of grind it out affair, a big 5^th inning by #1 Snow Canyon pushed them past #4 Ridgeline 16-9 in bracket play of the 4A state tournament.

Snow Canyon got off to as fast start, scoring 4 runs in the top of the 1^st inning. Ridgeline immediately answered with 2 runs in the 2^nd and 3 runs in the 3^rd to take a 5-4 lead.

“It was kind of a crazy game. We’d put some runs up on the board and then they would come right back and get runs and, too many walks and free at bats. I don’t know how many guys we hit, but way too many for a game like that,” said Snow Canyon head coach Reed Secrist. “Just good thing the bats came alive from, you know, from yesterday to today. It was a little different story. Im just happy with the win for sure, even if it was ugly all around. I don’t really like games like that for sure, but it was good.”

Snow Canyon was held scoreless from the 2^nd-4^th innings but then went on to score 12 runs in the final three innings to grab the victory.

Snow Canyon were led at the plate by Jagger Mugavero and Porter Randall who each had 3 RBIs on the night.

Starting pitcher Zac Beck pitched 5 innings and struck out six batters for Snow Canyon.

The turning point in the game came in the 5^th inning. Patience and discipline at the plate paid huge dividends for Snow Canyon in the inning, breaking the game wide open with a 7-run inning. They loaded the bases with no outs in the inning and then proceeded to 3 consecutive runs on bases loaded walks before Jagger Mugsvero ripped a bases clearing triple down the left field line.

“We had some good plate discipline, and that’s the inning where their pitcher reached his pitch limit so they had to go to their bullpen, which was huge because he’s a good player. We swung at the first pitch a lot yesterday. Tonight was a little different story. We worked counts and got on base and did some really good stuff.”

After winning their first game of the tournament in a low scoring affair, the bats came alive in a huge way, something Snow Canyon head coach Reed Secrist was thrilled to see.

If there’s one thing that Secrist is able to take away from his team’s performance the first two games of the tournament, it’s that they certainly have the ability and capability to find a way to grind out a win, no matter how ugly things may seem to be going.

“I like the way that we kept grinding and we kept going. I mean, we put up four in the first, and then we stopped, and then we had a little talk, and we put up the seven spot, but we just kept adding to it after that, which was definitely great for us, hopefully we can keep that going.”

Provo 8, Mountain Crest 2

Taven Lancaster went 3 for 4, leading #5 Provo to an 8-2 win over #8 Mountain Crest in the 4A state tournament. Gehrig Orchard added support by going 1 for 2 with three RBIs, helping the Bulldogs pull ahead with four runs in the third inning. Mountain Crest scored its two runs in the third but couldn’t keep pace in the later innings.

Crimson Cliffs 9, Timpanogos 3

In the bracket play of the 4A state tournament, #7 Crimson Cliffs staged a dramatic late-game rally to defeat #3 Timpanogos 9-3. After trailing 1-0 in the first inning, the Mustangs turned the tide with a seven-run surge in the final inning. Austin Smith helped drive in two runs for Crimson Cliffs.