After an opening-day win over Canyon View, Emery moved into their second day for a match-up with Morgan Friday morning earning a 9-3 win. In their second game Friday they faced the Grantsville Cowboys in a high-scoring affair in which the Lady Spartans would commit 13 errors and drop their first game of the tournament, 17-11.
In the first game against the No. 4 Morgan Trojans, Emery got on the board putting up a single run in the first. In the second inning with the score at 2-0, Tailynn Minchey scored on a passed ball, and Shannon Johnson sent a line drive single to center and drove in Alexis Ungerman. Two batters later, Kaitlyn Nielson sent a single to right bringing home Johnson and Brooklynn Ekker putting the score at 7-0.
Morgan scored their only runs in the top of the third, and in the bottom of the fifth Ekker sent a single to left, driving in Ungerman and Kali Jensen giving the Lady Spartans the 9-3 win.
Jensen had a pair of hits and scored three runs for Emery. Nielson had two hits and a pair of RBIs, Johnson, and Ekker each collected one hit, two RBIs, and a run scored.
Kallee Lake got the complete game win giving up four hits and three runs, one earned, and striking out three.
In the second game of the day, the Lady Spartans faced the Grantsville Cowboys.
Grantsville would jump on the board in the second putting up three. In the bottom of the third, with the Cowboys up 4-0, Jensen came up to the plate sent a grounder to first, and would reach on an error, as Ungerman would score. Two batters later Nielson would hit a sacrifice fly to right that allowed Jensen to cross home putting the score at 4-2 Grantsville.
Things would stay pretty calm in the fourth as the Cowboys added three runs and the Lady Spartans added another bringing the score to 7-3. Emery held Grantsville scoreless in the top of the fifth and the Spartans would have a rally in the bottom half of the inning starting when Ekker sent a single to left scoring Johnson. The next batter up was Nielson and she sent the first pitch she saw to center for a double bringing Ekker home. Madi Bunnell came up sending a single to center driving in Nielson. Elli Stoker hit a pop fly and would reach on an error sending Bunnell home to tie the score at 7-7. The sixth and the seventh innings were about to get crazy.
Grantsville would come out in the top of the sixth, and add two more pushing their lead to 9-7. The Spartans entered into the bottom of the inning, Ekker singled to left field driving in Ungerman and Jensen tying the game up at 9-9. With two outs, Bunnell stepped up to the plate sending a grounder to short bringing Ekker home and giving Emery the 10-9 lead, for a moment.
In the top of the seventh Grantsville exploded for eight runs helped out by Emery who would give up two hit batsmen, two errors, a walk for a run, and a two-run home run giving the Cowboys a 17-10 lead into the bottom of the seventh. The Lady Spartans would add one run in the bottom of the seventh when Jensen would send Minchey home with a single and that would be it as Grantsville handed the 17-11 loss to Emery, their first of the tournament.
Ekker had three hits, scored two runs, and had three RBIs for Emery. Ungerman and Johnson had two hits and two runs scored. Bunnell and Jensen each collected two hits and scored two runs while Bunnell had two RBIs and Jensen had one in the loss.
Emery used three pitchers starting with Lake who went 3.2 innings giving up three hits with five runs and striking out two. Rheagan Rhoten went three and surrendered seven hits nine runs, four earned, and struck out one, and Ekker finished things out with a pair of hits with three runs, two earned.
Next up is a meeting with North Sanpete who Emery faced twice in the regular season falling in both games. If Emery loses, their season comes to an end, a win and they will move to the Championship Round where they would have to defeat Grantsville twice.
The game with North Sanpete is set to begin at 10:00 am Saturday.