5A baseball state tournament: Three SIC teams make semifinals. One was a big surprise
Treasure Valley teams continued to shine at the 5A baseball state tournament Thursday.
No. 2 Owyhee, No. 4 Rocky Mountain and No. 8 Mountain View all advanced to the semifinals, marking the fifth straight year the region has sent at least three teams to the final four.
Lake City also edged Coeur d’Alene 6-2 in the nightcap, setting up the semifinal round back at The College of Idaho’s Wolfe Field. The matchups include:
No. 4 Rocky Mountain (18-8) vs. No. 8 Mountain View (17-10), 4 p.m.
No. 2 Owyhee (22-2) vs. No. 3 Lake City (20-5), 6:30 p.m.
Below are the top highlights for local teams in the first round.
[Related: Scores from every Idaho baseball state tournament]
MOUNTAIN VIEW 5, EAGLE 3
The Mavericks drew the short end of the stick when the state tournament brackets came out Sunday.
Mountain View earned the No. 8 seed, meaning the Mavericks had to face No. 1 Eagle (21-4), the recently crowned district champ, in the opening round.
But they didn’t cower. They relished the David vs. Goliath matchup, and delivered a stunner to open the state tournament.
Evan Perry broke a 3-3 tie in the top of the seventh inning with an RBI single, and the Mavericks held on to become the first No. 8 seed to knock off the No. 1 team since Idaho started using MaxPreps rankings to seed its baseball state tournaments in 2022.
“We knew if they came at us dry and looking past us, we knew we’re gonna put up a crazy fight,” Perry said. “And that’s exactly what we did.”
Mountain View took control of the game early, jumping out to a 2-0 lead on Patrick Judge’s two-run single past a drawn-in infield in the second inning. Eagle answered and took a 3-2 lead in the fourth on Zach Johansen’s RBI single. But the Mavericks weren’t done.
Tav Hiaring tied the score with a sacrifice fly in the sixth. And Mountain View hurled the final rock that took down Goliath in the seventh.
Perry laced a shot through the left side of the infield to score his brother, Owen Perry, from second base. Eagle third baseman Caleb Zawadzki fielded the cutoff throw and tried to nail Cade Burnham at third. But he fired wide, and Burnham came home for the final score.
Mountain View ace Conner Marshall then pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning to cap off the win, and the Mavericks stormed the field to celebrate.
“Everybody was talking about Eagle this, Eagle that,” Mountain View coach Justin Schneidt said. “That was the approach we took. Nobody is giving you a fair shake. Nobody is talking about you.”
They are now. The Mavericks needed to win two elimination games just to qualify for the state tournament, but Thursday’s win sent Mountain View to the semifinals for the fifth straight year, where it will face rival Rocky Mountain.
The Grizzlies are 3-0 vs. the Mavericks this season.
“That’s going to be an easy baseball game,” Schneidt said. “It’s going to be a blood, sweat and tears type of thing, and who wants it more.
“To be honest, I don’t know who we’re throwing. We have our whole pitching staff ready. I know Rocky’s got their full pitching staff ready, so it should be a knockdown, dragout (fight).”
Eagle is now in the consolation bracket, where it will face Middleton at 10 a.m. Friday back at Wolfe Field in Caldwell.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN 3, MIDDLETON 1
The chatter entering the 5A state tournament left Rocky Mountain defending its seed. The Grizzlies drew the No. 4 seed in the MaxPreps rankings while Middleton (21-7), the district runner-up, was seeded fifth.
That didn’t sit well with many outside observers. But Rocky Mountain silenced those voices Thursday, shutting down Middleton’s powerful lineup to return to the state semifinals for the fourth time in five years.
“Good. Count us out,” Rocky Mountain junior pitcher Lincoln Mathis said. “Because that just makes us more dangerous.”
Mathis silenced Middleton’s bats, finishing a complete game while allowing one run on nine hits and striking out five. The College of Southern Idaho commit gave up plenty of base runners, but he and the Grizzlies worked their way out of trouble each time.
Mathis picked off runners to thwart run-scoring opportunities in the third and fourth innings. And Rocky Mountain third baseman Javin Ellett cut down an overaggressive Boomer Collins at home plate in the first inning.
The slick fielding stranded nine Middleton runners on base. That continued a troubling trend for the Vikings, who left 25 runners on base the past three games — all losses.
“We had some film on them. We knew they weren’t a great base-running team,” Mathis said. “So we took advantage of that.”
While the Grizzlies defense stole some outs, their offense stole a few runs, too. A double steal in the fourth inning forced Middleton catcher Drew Holman to airmail the throw into left field, allowing pinch runner Rixon Rodriguez to stroll across home plate for the game’s first run.
Jordan Ellett then chopped an RBI single through the right side of the infield in the fifth, and pinch runner Austin Buechler took home on a wild pitch as the Grizzlies didn’t let any opportunities go to waste.
“We didn’t want to go home with any doubts and feel like we could have done stuff,” Rocky Mountain coach Stephan Zanoni said. “So we wanted to run.
“(Middleton pitcher Ian Lenius) is a good arm. You’re not going to string two, three, four hits together off him. So when we had opportunities, we wanted to try to steal an extra 90 feet.”
The win continued a comeback story for Rocky Mountain. The perennial power missed the state tournament last year for just the third time in school history, then started the season 7-6. But the Grizzlies have won 11 of their past 13 games to return to familiar territory in the semifinals.
“I feel like we’ve gotten better as the season has gone on,” Zanoni said. “We didn’t play our best baseball at the start. But, hats off to the kids. They bought in, one through 22, worked their tails off, and they’ve earned everything they got.
“I think they showed they belong in this tournament here this morning.”
OWYHEE 7, HIGHLAND 4
Most teams rely on a bona fide ace or two to compete for a state title. Two-time defending state champ Owyhee uses a different formula.
The Storm’s pitching staff runs nine arms deep, and Owyhee relied on several of those arms Thursday to pull out a first-round victory.
Starting pitcher Lucas Skinner gave up three runs before getting out of the second inning. But Kaleb Doty stopped the bleeding and bridged the gap to sophomore Nathan Keith to send the Storm back to the semifinals.
The formula ought to sound familiar. Doty also put out a fire in last year’s state championship game to set up an Owyhee rally. He repeated the feat Thursday, holding Highland to one run on four hits through 4 ⅓ innings.
“It kind of went like it went last year,” Wright said. “We went, ‘Oh, crap. We’ve got to get out of this before we give up enough that it might not be salvageable.’
“I guess that’s the benefit of the way we do it.”
Owyhee’s explosive lineup did more than enough to salvage a win, batting around in the fourth inning and plating four runs to break the game open.
Freshman Christian Zannitto delivered the first blow with a two-run double. Keagan Kelly and Ryder Cutlip followed with RBI singles to give Owyhee a 5-3 lead, and the Storm were off to the races.
“I think it was just more of a mental thing going down 3-1,” said Doty, who collected his first two hits of the season in addition to the win. “Once we kept getting more hits, it was just a momentum builder.”
Keith worked a scoreless seventh inning for his fifth save of the season, showcasing another arm that has allowed Owyhee to mix and match its way to 22 victories. Only Doty is ineligible to pitch the rest of the tournament, leaving Owyhee eight more options.
Wright admits he might pull a pitcher too quickly. But with so many other weapons at his disposal, it’s hard to question his methods — or the results.
“If you want to win in a three-day tournament or a double-elimination tournament, I don’t think you can just have three or four (pitchers),” Owyhee coach Russ Wright said. “I think you need eight or nine.
“They may not be as good as everybody’s No. 1, but they’re going to win you some ballgames.”
This story was originally published May 16, 2024 at 5:08 PM.
