The Helper American Legion Baseball season came to an end as the team suffered a 6-3 loss to Stansbury, resulting in a second defeat at the state tournament Saturday afternoon at Juan Diego High School.

Advancing into the double-elimination round of the tournament, Helper suffered back-to-back losses over the weekend. First was a 5-1 setback at the hands of Herriman Friday afternoon, setting the stage for the season ending loss on Saturday.

“I thought we played extremely well in that playoff series against Mountain View,” said manager Dakota Cisneros. “Heading into the state tournament I thought we were in the right place. We did alright against Herriman. We had a couple of errors against Stansbury and couldn’t get our bats going.”

Entering the best-of-three playoff series as the No. 14 seed, Helper quickly defeated No. 19 Mountain View with back-to-back wins. This allowed the Merchants to move to the final field of 16 to compete for a state championship.

Helper provided enough defense to remain close with No. 4 Herriman on Friday. The offense failed to provide enough run support as the team left several runners stranded throughout the contest.

Faced with a win-or-go-home situation on Saturday, the Merchants improved their at-bats, but encountered costly mistakes in the field. Two errors placed two runners on base with two outs. No. 6 Stansbury took full advantage with a three-run home run, putting the game out of reach.

“You’ve got to beat everyone in order to win a state championship. I thought the two teams we played were really good, but definitely beatable,” Cisneros said when asked about the level of competition the team faced. “It was very competitive with a lot of great teams in that tournament and that’s what you want.”

Fielding a team featuring all potential Carbon High School players, the Merchants encountered several ups and downs throughout the season. Back-to-back losses to Salem Hills affected the team’s tournament seeding, but a league winning streak of four games provided hope heading into the post season.

Built off of a large contingency of young talent, Helper had three seasoned players that helped lead the team throughout the season. Braxton Bennett and Nathan Richens fell under the umbrella to return to the 19U team to prepare for baseball at the next level. Tyler Wright was the lone senior off of a Carbon team that featured just two in 2020.

“I saw some guys become really coachable and work on things on their own,” Cisneros said when asked about this season’s positives. “I thought they wanted to be there. They worked on things to get better and I think this will make them that much better next high school season.”

Helper managed to play nearly two months worth of games and even had the opportunity to bring back their local tournament featuring teams from outside of the county. With the season in doubt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cisneros believes the summer was a success.

“This was a good summer that gave 33 kids an opportunity to play baseball. We had 19-year-old kids all the way down to 14-year-old kids playing for Helper. I’m really appreciative of those kids who did everything to make this season successful. I hope these kids will take this summer and use it to make the next high school season successful.”

Listen to Cisneros’ complete interview below: