Maple Mountain 10 Pleasant Grove 8
Two teams that know each other well went battle once again Wednesday in the 5A state tournament, with No. 2 Maple Mountain coming out on the right side of things this time around against No. 3 Pleasant Grove, 10-8.
After falling to Pleasant Grave the day prior, Maple Mountain’s bats were the story of this game, powering the side to victory and living to see another day.
Maple Mountain scored in every inning from the second onward and racked up 10 hits in the process.
Maple Mountain got solid production from catcher Brooks Pratt, who went 2 for 3 with two RBIs and a walk. Shortstop Lincoln Beenfield also had a strong showing, going 2 for 2 with a run scored and a walk.
“I felt like we laid off a lot of pitches,” said Maple Mountain head coach Jeremy Thomas. “We didn’t swing at balls, and we swung at strikes, and then when we did swing, we put barrels on it.
“As we got into the second time through the order, our hitters had a good approach and that paid off for the guys.”
With the win, Maple Mountain sets up another contest with Pleasant Grove — their fifth meeting of the year — to decide who will advance to the state championship series.
“Pleasant Grove is a great team,” Thomas said. “We knew when they came into 5A that they were going to give everybody a challenge. We knew in our region play it was gonna prepare us for situations like this.
“You just hope that the guys can perform and make plays when it matters. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t, and today we did.”
Thomas knows that with the amount of games both teams have been playing this week in a short amount of time, both might be a little tired. The key in the elimination format will be which team outperforms that other in the field and can play a cleaner style of baseball.
“You never know because in those situations, guys could be a little bit tired,” Thomas said. “They may not have their best stuff, but it’s all gonna come down to pitching and defense.
“Whoever can throw the most strikes and whoever can make the most plays is typically gonna keep the game close. If we can have a good approach and swing the bat like we did today, then we have a good chance. It’s gonna be a good battle.”
It wasn’t easy, but No. 1 Spanish Fork found a way to get the job done against No. 4 West Field, winning 4-2 in extra innings and by so doing, extending its stay in the 5A state tournament.
“What we preach all of the time is sticking to our gameplan and keep doing what we do well,” said Spanish Fork head coach Hadley Thorpe. We stick with our approach throughout the whole game, and it paid off.
“I’d like to get our offense going a little earlier, but like I said, we stick with our approach. ”The hits are going to come with the talent in our lineup, and the hits will be there. These guys seem to find a way when we get our backs up against wall. They always find a way.”
Leading 2-1 going into the seventh inning, West Field brought on closer Marshall Moon to try to shut down the potent Spanish Fork offense. Spanish Fork had other ideas, however.
A double by Trigg Cloward knotted the game up at 2, ultimately sending it to extra innings. In the top of the eighth inning, Spanish Fork continued to get good at-bats off of Moon, getting an RBI single by Pratt Morley and tacking on another run later in the inning to take the lead for good.
Not only did Morley end up driving in the game-winning run in extra innings, he also had a gem of an outing on the mound in relief.
He came on for Spanish Fork in the fourth inning and struck out eight batters while not allowing a single hit.
“Pratt had absolutely incredible stuff,” Thorpe said. “He throws hard in the zone all the time. Yeah, just that’s our guy. In every high leverage spot, we’ve gone to him, so we trust him fully in that spot. If anytime we can go to him in a tight spot, we do it.”
Last year, Spanish Fork went on an incredible Cinderella run all the way to the state title as the No. 20 seed. This year as the top team in 5A, the Dons aren’t catching anybody by surprise. Thorpe, however, has instilled an “Us against the world” mentality that seems to be working for his team.
“We have a lot of holdovers from last year and doing it as the 20 seed, and we kind of took that mindset today that it was us against the world again in this spot, so it was comfortable for us today,” he said.
“This group wouldn’t do it the easy way, so they tried to do it the hard way every time.”