By GANNON HANEVOLD
Moapa Valley Progress
The excitement continued last week as the Moapa Valley High School Baseball program just kept rolling. But it certainly was not without the suspense of a few scares from opponents.
The first game of the week came on Monday, Apr. 17, at home against SECTA. Early in the game, Moapa Valley struggled. Errors on the defensive end accumulated to put the Roadrunners in the lead with a 3-1 advantage midway through the third inning.
In the bottom of the third, Dayton Wolfley batted in Drake Staheli from second and the Pirates cut the lead to two. Just one at-bat later, Coby Longman hit a ball that skipped past a dashing Wolfley between second and third and Wolfley rounded third and headed home. At the end of the inning, the score was knotted at three.
Trailing 4-3 in the fourth, the Pirates caught the contagious hitting bug. It started with Drake Staheli hitting a ball to third base, where Hunter Wrzesinski was in scoring position. An error at first got Staheli on base and brought Wrzesinski home for the tying run.
All of a sudden, the Roadrunners blinked and big hits from the Longman brothers, Daxton and Coby, led the Pirates to a 7-4 lead.
After a scoreless defensive inning, the Pirates added a run to their total to make the score 8-4.
In the sixth, the Pirates caught fire once again. An impressive inning, led by a home run over the left field wall by Dayton Wolfley, put the game on ice. A double from Daxton Longman with the bases loaded finished off the game with the ten-run rule in effect and a final score of 14-4.
“We just didn’t do a very good job early,” said head coach Ed McCann.”But to our guys’ credit, the word ‘quit’ is simply not in their vocabulary.”
Two days later, the Pirates traveled to Del Sol for their first meeting with the Dragons. The Pirates started much stronger than they had earlier in the week, putting in two runs in each of the first two innings to jump out to a 4-0 lead.
After that, though, the Pirates went cold. Del Sol had made a pitching change and the new pitcher’s breaking ball did a number on the Pirates. Ultimately, decent defense and great pitching guided Moapa to a 4-1 victory, despite the cold stretch.
Jade Marshall pitched for the Pirates and finished with six strikeouts.
In the last game of the week, held Friday, the Pirates went on the road for their second matchup of the season with Chaparral.
The Pirates scored two runs in the first inning. But in the fourth, the Cowboys responded to make it a 2-1 game.
Later, leading 4-1 in the sixth, the Pirates needed to keep Chaparral from rallying. After base hits early in the inning, the Cowboys were picking up momentum. With runners on first and third, and one out on the board, Pirate catcher Anthony Cornwall picked off a leading runner at first base to get the second out of the inning. One hitter later, the Pirates retired the inning.
In the top of the seventh, the Pirates got what McCann called an insurance run, pushing the lead to four and just about out of reach. They would go on to win by a final score of 5-1.
In each of their three games las week, the Pirates faced adversity but found ways to win. McCann praised his team’s young array of pitchers, including Chase Hadley and Coby Longman.
“Chase Hadley is just a beast for being such a young kid,” McCann said. “We like to say he has ice in his veins because nothing ever seems to bother him.”
McCann went on to praise the closing ability of Longman, who has now totaled four saves on the season.
With last week’s wins, the Pirates move to 6-0 in league play.
McCann continues to have belief in his group’s ability to stay focused. “Our guys have accepted the challenge of having a target on their back and done pretty well I think,” he said. “This is a special group of young men.”
The team takes on the rival Virgin Valley Bulldogs at home on Thursday as they try to stay unbeaten against their league.
