Makin’ History
During spring break while everyone headed home or on vacation, Eastern baseball was welcoming the nice spring weather with a few weeks packed with great games. The Golden Eagles played games against the Utah All-Stars, Weber State Club team, Salt Lake Community College, and also their most recent games against Dawson. Out of the 16 games played, The Eagles walked away with 13 wins and three losses.
This archived article was written by: Ryan Nelson
During spring break while everyone headed home or on vacation, Eastern baseball was welcoming the nice spring weather with a few weeks packed with great games. The Golden Eagles played games against the Utah All-Stars, Weber State Club team, Salt Lake Community College, and also their most recent games against Dawson. Out of the 16 games played, The Eagles walked away with 13 wins and three losses.
The Eagles kicked off the games at their home field with their opponent the Utah All-Stars. They played incredibly, holding the Utah All-Stars to only scoring two runs, both in separate games for all four of the games played.
The first game, the Eagles walked all over the All-Stars, ending the game 11-1. They did about the same in the second game with a score Eagles 10, All-stars 0. Player Tayson Wilson said, “In games one and two on both days, the pitchers threw really well and pounded the strike zone. In the beginning we started out slow with the sticks, but kicked it in, and started scoring a lot of runs.” Just as Wilson said the Eagles scored quite a few runs ending game three with a score of 6-0 and their final game with a score of 11-1.
Next up, the Eagles played Weber State club team, in Spanish Fork. Just like the previous week, the team worked the Wildcats, winning three out of the four games played. In game one on Friday, they swept Weber 12-0 calling in the mercy rule. The team did well at bat, scoring runs in every inning, and throwing four runs onto the board at their first at bats. The Eagles had their game together, and they showed it again in the second game winning 7-0. Game three didn’t fare as well as the previous two, with the score Weber 8, Eastern 3. They weren’t able to get the bats going as well as they had the day before. That didn’t slow them down later that day, Eastern fought hard and won 8-6. The Eagles finished the weekend with three wins and only one loss.
The following week was a packed week for Eagle baseball. They started out with SLCC on Tuesday. They played a double header and that didn’t go as planned for the Eagles. The stats showed it as well. SLCC had 30 at bats while the Eagles only had 17. Commented Bailey Thomas, “We booted the ball around, and made too many mental mistakes.” Eastern lost 14-2 in the first game. The score of the second game was SLCC 20 and the Eagles 5.
The team’s goal is to make it back to .500 so they can make it to the playoffs this year. Thomas says the difference in the games against SLCC and Dawson, is, “We committed as a team to less than five errors in six games against Dawson, and when we do that, we are hard to beat.” The Eagles showed that as they won all six games against Dawson at home. They are definitely on their way to the playoffs with this kind of attitude.
In game one the Eagles held Dawson to no runs, and put the game in the bag by scoring six points. Game one was pretty eventful, with two homers, one by Gentry Hatch, and Denver Hansen, and both in the same inning. The Eagles walked all over Dawson in game two scoring 10 runs and holding the Buccaneers team to only one run. Hansen hit another homer. Game three was even better as Eastern managed to leave Dawson scoreless and score 10 runs of their own, including three homers, two by Chance Abrath and one from Matt Gochis. The Eagles had a grip on the pitching team from Dawson. Dawson tried to make a run at it by scoring three in the fourth game, but Eastern shut them down again beating them by four.
The final two games on Saturday were high scoring, that is for the Eagles. Game one, Eastern pulled out a victory of 13-5 with 27 at bats. They polished off the six-game sweep of Dawson 13-3. With another two homers, one each by Abrath and Jake Meservey. Coach Scott Madsen said, “I told the players that I would need everything that they had for this week because of all the games that we were going to play. They gave me all that I could ask for plus more.” The team has their bats going and if they keep it up they will not only make it to the playoffs’ but may take the championship.
The Eagles are on a six-game winning streak and are hoping to extend that this next weekend as they travel to Colorado to play Colorado Northwestern CC on the March 22-23. “I have seen improvements on all aspects of the game. The fielding has improved a great deal, while the hitting has really taken off,” said Madsen. We can look forward to a winning season and tournament appearance for Eastern baseball.
