MT. PLEASANT—The Hawks hit at the right time. Literally.
North Sanpete baseball earned themselves a pleasurable non-region win last week while taking a break from region play, scoring a blistering 11 runs in the first inning against county neighbor Gunnison Valley to go on and win, 17-7, last Wednesday. The Hawks’ overall record moved to 7-11, and they still have a 3-6 record in Region 14.
“We were due for a good game, and it just happened to come against Gunnison,” Coach Austin Hadley said. “We’ve made some progress this season, and the win against Gunnison should give us some confidence going into the final region series.”
North Sanpete held a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning, when Gunnison caught a fly ball for the second out of the inning. After that, the motor kicked into high gear, and, as Hadley said, “hitting is contagious.”
The Hawks hit single after single, racking up the score to 5-0 with bases loaded when power hitting senior Hunter Price stepped up. Gunnison senior pitcher Myles Bartholomew elected to walk him, thus scoring another runner.
Then junior Angel Navarrete stepped up to the plate and made Gunnison forget about Price really quick. Navarrete bombed a grand slam over the fence in left field to drive the score up to 10-0. The junior finished leading the team with five RBI, while junior Logan Black hit a triple as part of a four-RBI performance.
“Our goal was to get on them early and take the momentum,” Hadley said. “We’ve been on the wrong side of ‘hitting is contagious’ a couple of times this season. Finally, it was our turn to have a big inning with the bats.”
The Hawks will close out their regular season this week, taking on Union on Tuesday and at home for a doubleheader on Friday.
