By LOU MARTIN
The Progress
The Virgin Valley High School baseball program hosted the annual Cactus Classic Baseball Tournament on March 9-11. The 6-team field included four Utah schools: Enterprise, San Juan, Bonneville and Emery; as well as our own Moapa Valley and Virgin Valley high schools.
The tournament began with warm up games on Thursday which did not count in the overall standings. Both valley teams lost their practice games with the Pirates falling to Enterprise 8-3 and the Bulldogs were edged out by Emery 6-5.
Round robin play to determine seeding for Saturday’s championship round began on Friday with the Pirates facing Bonneville High School at 9 am. The Pirates got good pitching and hitting to shut out the Lakers 6-0.
Trenton Wadsworth pitched the shutout win for the Pirates. Wadsworth struck out 11 Lakers allowing only 3 hits.
The Pirates got on the scoreboard in the top of the third inning with 4 runs, adding 2 more runs in the fifth inning for the win. Landon Wrzesinski led all hitters with 2 including a triple plus 2 RBI.
The Pirates moved on to face Emery at 1 pm in their next matchup where they had no problem rolling over the Spartans 12-4. Emery scored first in the opening inning but fell back as the Pirates put up 3 runs in the second and 7 runs in the third to take an insurmountable 10-2 advantage. Each team added two runs apiece making the final score 12-4.
Leading the way for the Pirates were Tahj Totten and Wadsworth with 2 hits. Tyson Staheli had the big bat with 4 runs batted in.
The Bulldogs lost to Enterprise 7-4 in their first round robin matchup on Friday afternoon. The Wolves easily dispatched the host Dawgs 7-4 scoring one run in the first followed by 3 runs in the second and 3 more in the fourth and last inning to lead 7-0 going into the bottom of the inning.
The Bulldogs mounted a furious rally but fell short. The Bulldog hitting woes continued as they managed only one hit by Drake Wakefield against two Wolves pitchers.
In the last match of a cold rainy night, Virgin Valley needed a big win over San Juan to make the semis on Saturday.
The Bulldogs bats finally came to life in the bottom of the fourth inning scoring 8 runs to ensure a 9-3 victory over San Juan. Wakefield led the Dawgs with 2 hits followed by Stratton Waite and Andy Litzenberger with 2 RBI. Mason Montoya got the win for the Dawgs.
The win moved the Dawgs to a high noon matchup with archrival Moapa Valley. Undefeated Enterprise was lined up to face Emery in the other semi-final at 10am.
Saturday’s game of the day was the most anticipated as the Pirates and their archrival Bulldogs faced off. The Pirates started Garrett Hadley and the Dawgs went with big Martin Jordan on the mound.
The Bulldogs jumped on Hadley in the first inning as Jared Jensen hit a screamer to the outfield driving in Bryce Intagliata who worked a walk. The Bulldogs threatened to increase their lead after two more walks and a single but Hadley stopped the threat with good pitching.
The Bulldogs took a huge lead in the top of the fourth inning with four runs after two were out. Drake Wakefield started the rally with a single followed by a walk to Braden Harris, an infield error and two straight singles by Intagliata and Kurt Felix. When the dust cleared the Dawgs led 5-0.
The Pirates had difficulty with Jordan’s pin-point pitching and could not mount a serious rally. Jordan had 7 K’s plus allowing only two hits in the game finishing with a shutout. Intagliata led the Dawgs with two hits and two RBI.
The Bulldog win sent the Dawgs to the championship match up against Utah’s small school Emery High School from Castledale. The Spartans had surprised favorite Enterprise in their semi-final round with a 6-4 win.
Despite wind, rain and thunder the Bulldogs pitching was A-1 in the championship game. Intagliata started on the mound for the Dawgs and completely handcuffed the Spartan hitters. Intagliata struck out 8 of 9 Spartan hitters in the first three innings.
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs put up two runs in the top of the third inning on a hit batter, a double by Mason Montoya and an RBI single by Jared Jensen. Intagliata struck out 5 of 6 batters he faced in the fourth and fifth inning keeping the Spartans awestruck.
The Bulldogs added two runs in the fifth inning off a huge blow over the left field barrier by Dodger Smith.
Intagliata struck out two more Spartans in the sixth inning giving him 15 strikeouts for the game. He gave up his first hit of the game in the inning.
The Bulldogs pulled Intagliata after six innings putting in a reliever. The Spartans took advantage of the new pitcher scoring one run and loaded the bases with no outs in the inning.
The Bulldogs would then bring in their third pitcher, Matt Hughes, who struck out the next two batters before the threat lightning from an approaching storm ended the game with a final score of 6-1.
Leading the Dawgs offense were Intagliata with two doubles, Smith’s massive homer and Montoya and Stratton Waite who also doubled in the game.
