After the first two weekends of the season were tournaments on the road, the Carbon Dino boys baseball team opened up home play on Tuesday, taking on the East Leopards. In the early going, the game was very competitive, but East used a huge 7th inning to take the 12-7 win.
The Dinos opened their season on the road in Mesquite and then, last weekend, took the field at the St. George Tournament, working their way through the first two weekends to a 4-5 record. Tuesday was their first opportunity to play in front of the home crowd.
After holding East off the board in the top half of the first, the Dinos came up to the plate with Logan Bennett sending a single to the shortstop to get on base. Jordan Nichols stepped into the batter’s box next, sending a triple to right, driving in Bennett. Cash Withers stepped in next and grounded out to the shortstop, but that gave Nichols enough time to score from third base as Carbon went into the second inning with a 2-0 lead. East came back in the top of the second to tie things up at 2-2.
In the bottom half of the inning, with two outs, Nichols came back to the plate with two on and sent one to right field, driving in Kaeden Sandoval and Maddux Willson as Carbon regained the lead 4-2. After a scoreless third inning, the Leopards came out in the fourth and grabbed the lead back 5-4.
Carbon would come up in the bottom half of the inning to tie things up off a Bennett single that drove in Connor Falk, then in the sixth, Willson sent one to left, driving in Adrian Vasquez to give the Dinos a 6-5 lead. In the sixth, Paxton Falk sent a fly ball to center, bringing Withers in to give Carbon a 7-5 lead. East added seven runs in the top of the seventh, taking the win over Carbon 12-7.
Nichols went 2-3 with three RBIs and a run scored. Bennett was 2-4 with an RBI and scored one. Brody Ware went 2-4 in the loss.
Xander Pappas got the start on the mound, going four innings, giving up five runs, four earned, on seven hits while striking out two. Kanyon Grant came in going 2.1 with three earned runs on three hits while striking out three. Paxton Falk came in and surrendered four runs and one hit, and Logan Curtis had one strikeout in the loss.
Carbon will be back on the diamond on Wednesday when they travel to take on Hunter.