By Jose Briseno- Castle Country Radio
Over the weekend, the Eagles baseball team travelled to Twin Falls to take on the College of Southern Idaho Golden Eagles for an important 4-game conference series. The Eagles were able to walk away with a game two win but fell in the other three games. After the weekend series, USU Eastern falls to 11-23 overall on the season and 8-14 in conference play, which is good enough for fourth place in the conference.
On Thursday afternoon, Eastern played a thrilling eleven-inning game against CSI but ultimately fell 4-3 on a walk-off CSI homerun. Vaughn Deming, Ty Barker, and Duke Kirby recorded the three RBIs for Eastern. Deming drove in Gabe Childs on a ground ball to the shortstop. Ty Barker earned his RBI on a home run to right field. Duke Kirby hit a sacrifice fly to center field that scored Dakari Armendariz from second. Ky Decker got the start on the mound for Eastern. Decker threw 6.0 innings and allowed three runs on four hits. He also had six strikeouts compared to just three walks allowed. Westin Corless threw the final 4.2 innings and his only allowed run was the walk-off homerun by Braxton Mills for CSI.
Friday afternoon brought a doubleheader that saw Eastern split the two games with CSI. Game one, on Friday and game two in the series, saw Hayden Brock get the start on the mound for USU Eastern in a 3-1 victory. Brock threw all seven innings and allowed just one run on four hits. He also tallied four strikeouts and five walks to anchor the Eagles defensively. Gabe Childs and Jake Mortensen recorded the two RBIs for Eastern. Childs drove in Duke Kirby on a double to left and then scored on a Mortensen single to centerfield to give Eastern two runs in the fifth inning. The Eagles got their first run of the game on a double steal in which Scott Bahde stole second base while Dylan Hawkes stole home on the throw to second.
Game three of the series ended in a 9-2 loss for USU Eastern. Kody Nelson, Tyler Fitch and Jordan Brown all saw time on the mound for Eastern. Vaughn Deming had three hits in the game, and seemed to be the lone source of offense for an Eagle team that struggled to string together any sort of rally over the weekend.
Game four was the deciding game to determine whether or not the Eagles would be able to tie the series with CSI. That, however, would not be the case as Eastern would go on to fall 9-0 in the series finale on Saturday. The Eagles’ bats were silenced by the CSI pitching staff as USU Eastern was only able to manage five hits in the game.
While the series may not have played out in Eastern’s favor, head coach Kirk Haney said there was much good that came from the weekend. “I was really pleased with the way we played this weekend,” Haney said. “Our pitching staff gave us quality starts that allowed for us to be in games. Hayden Brock shinned on the weekend, throwing a complete game. We as a team need to get better at the plate. We had chances to put runs across all weekend and didn’t capitalize when needed.”
Next week, the Eagles will look to have a better hitting series as they will remain in Price for a four-game series against the Community Christian College Saints. One game will be played Thursday, Apr. 14 at 3:00 pm. Friday will follow with a doubleheader starting at 12:00pm and game three at 2:30. Game four will be played on Saturday with first pitch being thrown at 11:00 am.