Prep baseball: Flyers walk past PV; SC drops Tigers

Written by Andy Griffin
April 22, 2017

ST. GEORGE – The Region 9 race just keeps getting more and more interesting. After Thursday’s unexpected Desert Hills loss to Cedar, Dixie and Snow Canyon grabbed a share of the region lead with wins Friday night. Those three teams are 4-2 and Pine View, with its extra-inning loss to the Flyers, is a game behind at 3-3. Hurricane and Cedar keep playoff hopes on life support with 2-4 and 1-5 records.

Here’s a look at Friday’s finals:

Dixie 13, Pine View 7 (F/10)

Chicks dig the long ball, but it was actually the walks that ultimately won it for the Flyers in the 10th inning.

Despite four home runs, including a Tyson Fisher solo bomb in the top of the eighth, Dixie couldn’t put the game away until the 10th. In that inning, Pine View handed the Flyers the win on a golden platter by hitting a batter (Hobbs Nyberg), and then issuing six straight one-out walks.

Dixie’s Tyson Fisher (18), Pine View vs. Dixie, Baseball, St. George, Utah, Apr. 21, 2017, | Photo by Robert Hoppie, ASPpix.com, St. George News

Fisher and Payden Harrah drew the first two to load the bases. Pinch hitter Josh Cazier broke the 7-7 tie with a full-count walk. After a pitching change, Kayler Yates made it 9-7 with a four-pitch base on balls. Another new pitcher changed nothing as Cooper Vest and Chase Lundin also walked, making it 11-7. Tyson Miller and Nyberg broke the string – with base hits – that made it 13-7 before PV could get out of the inning.

The Panthers had one hit in the bottom of the 10th, but could not put together a rally and Dixie took the W.

Dixie’s Hobbs Nyberg (9) and Pine View’s Ryke Erickson (4), Pine View vs. Dixie, Baseball, St. George, Utah, Apr. 21, 2017, | Photo by Robert Hoppie, ASPpix.com, St. George News

It was a see-saw game throughout. Dixie had the first lead at 2-0 after Dayton Dempsey rifled a homer over left in the first. Jagun Leavitt had an RBI and Ryke Erickson scored on a wild pitch as it was 2-2 in the third. Erik Sanchez’s RBI single, along with a Dixie error made it 4-2 Panthers.

Lundin hit a solo homer to lead off the fourth to cut it to 4-3. After two walks, Fisher slammed his first homer of the night to left field to make it 6-4 Flyers.

A Dawson Staheli RBI double cut it to 6-5 in the bottom of the fourth and Weston Sampson brought the game even for Pine View with a solo homer to lead off the bottom of the seventh.

Pine View’s Makai Maclellen (16), Pine View vs. Dixie, Baseball, St. George, Utah, Apr. 21, 2017, | Photo by Robert Hoppie, ASPpix.com, St. George News

After Fisher’s solo shot put Dixie back on top in the eighth, the Panthers were able to scratch home the tying run in the bottom half on a sac fly by Jagun Leavitt.

Neither team was able to put one across in the ninth, though Pine View had two on with two outs before Kayler Yates was able to wriggle out of the jam with a harmless shallow fly ball.

Dixie, 4-2 in Region 9 play and 15-3 overall, had 10 hits and four homers in the game. The Flyers also drew 18 free bases via walks and HBPs in the contest. Dixie squares off with Hurricane next week, with the Tuesday game at Tiger Field and the Friday game at Flyer Field.

Pine View, 3-3 and 9-9 overall, got two hits each from Sanchez, Leavitt and Dawson Staheli. The Panthers had nine hits. The two teams combined to leave 27 runners on base. Pine View battles Cedar next week, with Tuesday’s game at Panther Field at 7 p.m. and Friday’s game at Redmen Field at 4 p.m.

Snow Canyon 11, Hurricane 1

For the second time in four days, the Warriors 10-runned the Tigers behind a prolific offense and a solid defense.

Cannon Secrist pitched a complete game (six innings) and knocked home the mercy-rule run in the bottom of the sixth in the Snow Canyon victory. Warrior right fielder Parker Ence also came up big, hitting his first home run of the season. Ence’s three-run shot came in the bottom of the fourth and turned a tense 1-0 SC lead into a 4-0 advantage. Snow Canyon scored three more in that inning, spurred by doubles by Kaleb Gates and Jamison Day, and held a 7-0 lead through four innings.

Snow Canyon’s Cannon Secrist (15), file photo by Robert Hoppie, ASPpix.com, St. George News

“That’s great to see because Parker is a guy who has been battling and working hard all year,” SC coach Reed Secrist said. “He was starting at the beginning of the year, but lost his job as some other guys stepped up. But he kept his head up and worked hard and it showed in batting practice. You’ve got to be happy for guys like that.”

Cannon Secrist, who had a no hitter through five innings before dropping a game late to Dixie last week, was on point again Friday night. He allowed just one run on four hits, with five strikeouts, in the win. The senior right-hander threw just 89 pitches, 54 of those for strikes.

“He was awesome tonight,” said Cannon’s dad and head coach, Reed Secrist. “He really did a good job bouncing back after what happened last week. He showed some toughness.”

Coach Secrist said one of the keys to the game was putting the ball in play against a tough pitcher in Hurricane’s Alec Flemetakis.

“We just wanted to put pressure on their defense to make plays and make sure we made their pitchers work for it at the plate,” Secrist said. “Our guys are confident right now, but we also realize what a tough region this is. We still have Desert Hills and Pine View and it will be the same kind of games as the Dixie games.”

Snow Canyon had eight hits in the game, but also gained base runners with three walks and three hit batsmen, plus five Tiger errors. All seven of the runs Flemetakis gave up ended up being unearned. Nick Horsley, who pitched in relief, gave up four runs, but only two earned.

The only run in the game in the first three innings came in the bottom of the second, when Braden Baker came in on Hurricane’s first error. There was also a Tiger error preceding Ence’s blast. Hurricane’s lone run came on an RBI double by Noah Humphrey in the fifth.

With the score 10-1 in the bottom of the sixth, Snow Canyon needed a single run to end the game early via the 10-run rule. Austin Deming led off by reaching on HHS’s fifth error on an errant throw that got him to second. He went to third on a wild pitch and then Secrist halted the game with an RBI single to center.

Day, Deming and Zach Nowatzke each had a double in the game to go with Ence’s long ball as four of SC’s eight hits went for extra bases.

The Warriors move into a tie for first place with Dixie and Desert Hills with the victory at 4-2 in region play (12-7 overall). Snow Canyon faces the Thunder next week, with a Tuesday game at Warrior Field and the Friday contest at Thunder Field.

REGION 9 BASEBALL STANDINGS
Desert Hills 4-2 (14-4)
Dixie 4-2 (15-3)
Snow Canyon 4-2 (12-7)
Pine View 3-3 (9-9)
Hurricane 2-4 (8-10)
Cedar 1-5 (6-9)

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @oldschoolag

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2017, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andy Griffin has been in sports media since 1989 and has covered BYU, Utah State and the Utah Jazz as well as all sports in southern Utah. A journalism graduate of USU, Andy has carried on a dual career as both a sports writer and a sports broadcaster and has been heard around the country. He has also been published in USA Today, Sport magazine, The Sporting News, Fairways magazine, the Los Angeles Times and locally in the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Spectrum. Andy was “The Voice of Region 9 sports,” for many years. He also hosted a daily sports talk show for three years called AG in the a.m. Andy has been married to his college sweetheart Shelly for 28 years and has five children ages 13 to 25.

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