The Carbon Dino baseball squad opened the season on the road in Mesquite today, taking on the Virgin Valley Bulldogs. The Bulldogs took advantage of mistakes from the Dinos on their way to a 16-0 win.

The Dinos finished last season 10-15 overall and 8-6 in region play, falling in the opening round of the postseason to North Sanpete.

The Dinos held the Bulldogs to three runs in the first two innings, but in the third, a triple, an error, and a homerun by Virgin Valley would put them up 10-0 going into the fourth.

The problems for the Dinos at the plate would continue as Carbon went three and out in the top of the inning.  In the bottom half of the inning, the Bulldogs had a pair of outs when a walk brought in one run, and they would score on a wild pitch to Deagan Shaner, who would end up sending a pitch over the left field wall to put the score at 16-0, ending the game.

Jordan Nichols for the Dinos would go 1-2 in the game, as would Maddux Wilson.

Willson got the start on the mound, going 2.1 innings, giving up seven runs, three earned, on seven hits, and struck out four. Adrian Vasquez came in, going 2/3 of an inning and surrendered two hits, three earned runs, while striking out one and Marcus Vigil closed out the contest, going 2/3 with six earned runs on three hits.

Rob Smith, the Dinos’ head coach, joined KOAL’s Drive Time Sports to talk about the loss.

“They (Virgin Valley) swung it well. You know, we had a couple of errors that hurt us; we had quite a few walks, just non-characteristic things for us. We walked a few, and it’s pretty windy down here. The wind was blowing straight out to the left, and they got a couple of home runs after some walks, and they capitalized on our mistakes.”

The Dinos will have to put the loss behind them as they will face the Duchesne Eagles at 5:00 p.m.