Pirates Win All 3 Games Last Week

By DAVE BELCHER

The Progress

The Moapa Valley High School Baseball team came away with three big wins last week to push their season record to 15-7 overall and 7-1 in league play headed into the final week of the regular season. The Pirates have won 4 straight games and are in second place right behind Virgin Valley.
Last week the Pirates outscored their opponents 60-5.

The first victory was at Cheyenne High School in Las Vegas on Monday, April 25 where the Pirates beat the Desert Shields 16-4. Moapa Valley scored 4 runs in the first inning.

Tyson Pettingill walked to start the inning. He advanced to second with a steal, then was moved to third on a fly out to center field by Gunner Redd.
Tyson Staheli sent a fly ball to center field. Pettingill tagged and scored the first run.

Rylan Evans singled followed by a steal then advanced to third on Landon Wrzesinski’s single. Wrzesinski then stole second. Austin Heiselbetz singled, scoring both Evans and Wrzesinski for a 3-0 lead. Heiselbetz scored after stealing second base followed by Logan Schouten single.

Cheyenne scored twice in the bottom of the first only to have the Pirates score 3 runs in both the second and third innings. They added four more in the fourth and 2 in the fifth.

Moapa Valley had 17 hits in the game with 13 stolen bases. Rylan Evans had three hits to lead the team. He scored twice and drove in a run. Staheli was 2-4 with 2 RBI’s. Garrett Hadley was 2-2 with 3 runs scored while Chandler Evans was 2-3 scoring twice and driving in a run. Aiden Johnson was 2-2 with a couple of RBI’s.
Shandon Matheson was the winning pitcher. He allowed 3 runs on 3 hits.

The Pirates hosted Sunrise Mountain on Wednesday and came away with a 22-0 shutout no hitter.
Rylan Evans was 4-4 with 4 runs scored and 4 RBI’s. Two of those hits were triples. Heiselbetz was 3-3 with 2 runs scored and 3 RBI’s.

The Pirates scored 12 runs in the bottom of the first followed by 10 more in the bottom of the second. The game ended after the top of the third inning on the mercy rule.
Schouten was the winning pitcher, striking out 5 Miners.

On Friday the Pirates beat the Western Warriors 22-1 in Las Vegas. It took four innings to end that game.
Moapa Valley scored 4 runs in the first, 2 in the second, 6 runs in the third and 10 in the fourth. Western got their lone run in the bottom of the first.

Rylan Evans tripled in the third. He drove in 3 RBI’s while scoring 3 times. Pettingill drove in 3 RBI’s as well as Wrzesinski. Hadley, Heiselbetz, Totten, Staheli all drove in 2 runs. Staheli scored 5 times in the game.
Staheli was the winning pitcher, striking out 3 and allowing no hits.
Evans closed out the game allowing 1 hit and striking out 5.

The Pirates will finish the season traveling to Eldorado on Wednesday and hosting Virgin Valley on Thursday at 3:30 pm for the final season game.

With a Pirates win at Eldorado, the Virgin Valley game becomes the league championship game. Virgin Valley is in first place and has beaten the Pirates 6-4 earlier in the season. The Pirates would need to beat the Dawgs by 2 runs in order to win the top seed in the league.
“We look forward to this week,’ said MVHS Head Coach Justin Williams.