The Carbon and Emery baseball and softball teams are getting ready to begin the 3A State Championship Tournaments on Saturday. Emery baseball will face Morgan in Nephi at Juab High School and softball will be in Granstville to take on the Providence Hall Patriots. Carbon softball and baseball will be at home for the opening round, the boys will face South Sevier at fields at Carbon High and the Lady Dinos will face Region 12 foe Richfield at the Carbon County Fairgrounds Complex.
The Emery Spartan baseball squad ended the season 12-8 overall and sit at the No. 9 spot. They will face off with Morgan on Saturday at 9 a.m. Morgan entered the tournament at No. 8 with a 13-10 record.
“I’m happy with whoever we play. I feel like we have the ability to beat anybody if we play clean baseball,” coach Rob Smith said in a recent interview on Drive Time Sports. “We’re going all in to win the first one and then play on from there. I feel like we have the pitching to compete and going forward we’ve got to throw strikes and we’ve gotta make plays.”
If Emery defeats Morgan they would face the winner of the Juab/South Summit contest. The Juab Wasps earned the No. 1 position in the RPI ending the season 21-2. The Spartans and the Wasps faced each other on March 24 with the Wasps taking a 12-0 win. If Emery were to win their first game, the second one would take place at 5 p.m., should they lose they would fall into the lower bracket, that game would begin at 2:30.
Below is the interview with Emery baseball coach Rob Smith:
The No. 6 Lady Spartan softball team will also be on the road in Grantsville to take on the No. 11 Providence Hall Patriots at 1:15 p.m. The Spartans are looking forward to possibly not facing a team from Region 12 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, knowing how difficult it is to defeat a team three times in one season.
“With everyone in our region we’ve faced them two times. They’ve seen all of our pitchers; we’ve seen all their pitchers, so we know what to expect. I don’t want to be in that until the State Championship,” said Emery coach Shaun Bell. When asked if he had any concerns about Providence Hall he talked about pitching, “They (Providence Hall) don’t have as good of pitching as we’ve faced, so I’m a little bit nervous because we tend to start a little bit slow against someone who’s not as good a pitcher, so I think our girls are focused and ready though.”
If the Spartans should win their game against Providence Hall, they will not play again until next Thursday May 13 in Spanish Fork. If they should lose they will play once more at 3:30.
Below is the interview with Emery softball coach Shaun Bell:
Both the Carbon baseball and softball teams will be at home on Saturday since both teams finished the season in the No. 4 spot in the RPI in their respective sports. Carbon baseball will face the No. 13 South Sevier Rams, a team from the Dinos region. Carbon defeated South Sevier both times they faced off this season 7-1 in the first meeting and 11-4 in the second, and even though they won both contests coach Jeff Cisneros would admit it wasn’t their best baseball.
“You talk about winning two games, and really feeling like you were in control in both games which really I felt like we were, but I don’t feel like we played really good baseball in either one of those games, ” said Cisneros. “We played those in a week where we had seven games in that week. It was a week where we traveled down to St. George for a tournament and we had seven varsity games that week; granted we played those two games before we headed down there, so it wasn’t a matter of being fatigued but I think as your looking at it trying to prepare to play seven games in a week, we may not have been completely focused.”
Should Carbon get past South Sevier they will possibly face Grantsville, who they faced earlier in the year. Back in March the two teams faced off with the Dinos coming out on top 12-7 in Grantsville.
Carbon has the luxury of having two fields at the high school so they were able to change the start times for both games because of the ability to have two games going on at once. Originally scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., the first games will begin at noon with the second set of games starting at 3.
Below is the interview with Carbon baseball coach Jeff Cisneros:
The Lady Dinos begin their playoff run at home when they face a familiar face in the Richfield Wildcats on Saturday in Price. The Wildcats enter the post-season with a 7-19 record and in the No.13 spot in the RPI. Being from Region 12, Carbon faced Richfield twice this season taking both contests 25-2 and 16-0. If they were to get past the Wildcats they could face another Region 12 member in the Grand Red Devils. The Dinos split the season series and could be looking for revenge.
“I’m not taking Richfield for granted. W e’ve got to get past them and then obviously Grand has to get past Delta, but if Grand and Carbon meet in that second round next Thursday in Spanish Fork it’s gonna be a battle,” coach Kirt Nunley said. “Grand beat us once, we beat them once, both teams know each other really well.”
Carbon will face Richfield starting at noon. With the opening round taking place at the county complex and with multiple fields available the other game Grand and Delta will take place at the same time. The two teams that lose will play again around 2:15.
Below is the interview with Carbon softball coach Kirt Nunley:
Check back with Castle Country Radio for the result for all the games as they become available.