The Helper Merchants 19U American Legion baseball squad was on the road over the weekend taking part in the season ending tournament, earning two wins moving them into quarterfinal play.
Finishing the regular season with a 19-3 record and earning the No. 4 spot. In the first match-up of two games they faced off with Washington, the No. 13 seed.
The first game started out quietly for the Helper team, that lasted until the third inning when Helper went on an offensive spree, putting up nine runs in the inning and then tacking on two more runs in the fourth for good measure. They held on for the victory 12-2.
Jordan Fossat started on the mound for the Merchants, after struggling early, he would put that behind him and finding a groove going six innings.
Offensively, Derick Robison went 3-3 driving in three RBIs. Beau Vea had two singles to go with his two RBIs. Jacob Vasquez added two RBIs and Kade Dimick went 3-4 helping the team to victory.
In the second game they faced Ridgeline, a team from Logan. After falling behind in the first inning, Helper would come back to tie the game at six heading into the fifth when the Merchants would find their bats again scoring seven runs and then held on for the 13-8 win.
Vea turned in another great performance on the mound going five innings, with Rylan Hart coming in to close out the sixth and seventh to seal the win.
Once again Helper would have a huge offensive output, with four different players contributing at least two RBIs. Dimick, Braxtin Henrie, Wyatt Falk and Dallen O’Neil all went 2-3. Falk added two runs and O’Neil posted two singles. Hart went 2-4 with one RBI and Robison would go 1-3 with a double and an RBI as well.
“Our bats are what has really won us both games. I mean we score 25 runs in two games and you know without that I don’t think we are where we’re at. Our hitting is definitely where it needs to be this time of the year. We’ve struggled defensively just a little bit, we’ve had a couple of errors that have cost us some runs and both those games probably wouldn’t have been as close as they were without those errors. We just need to take care of that, clean that up a little bit, keep our bats rolling, keep our pitchers throwing a lot of strikes and keeping our defense involved and we’ll be just fine”, said Helper manager Dakota Cisneros.
Up next for the Merchants is a game Monday against Lone Peak at Lone Peak High School. Game time is set for 5:30, a win here and they will face the winner of the Herriman/Pleasant Grove match-up Tuesday at Pleasant Grove High School at 5:30.