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Writer's pictureJerry Melrose

Buffalos ride their early season rollercoaster in front of hopeful hometown crowds

On Wednesday, August 28, the Piute Thunderbirds thundered into Buffalo Country, and after four full innings the score remained knotted at 1-1, before the Birds whittled runs in the subsequent three for their 6-1 win.



Holden Harris, sophomore Varsity catcher, scoring the tie-breaking ‘slide-off’ run in the JV’s 5-4 win over Piute. “We’ve got a long way to go,” he states, “but I feel like the entire team is getting better as we go.” Photo by Jerry Melrose.


In his post-game wrap-up, Head Coach Lance Peterson conducted his post-mortem, “Yeah, the Piute game. That was actually probably one of the most disappointing games for us this season, just because I thought we would compete a little bit more. Their pitcher pitched real well. We had fourteen strikeouts, two base-hits, and you can’t beat good teams like that. He was a good pitcher, but our approaches at the plate: we were timid; we weren’t confident. Hopefully, next time we play them, we’ll bounce back and make more plays. I think we can play with them; I think we can beat them! But, if Dalton’s on the mound, we have to get a lot better at batting than we were last time. It was, I think, the worst game of the season.”



On the brighter side, in JV action the homeboys matched the visitors’ initial trio with three of their own, adding another in the bottom of the second inning to lead 4-3 until the top of the fourth-stanza, where it remained tied at four-apiece going into the bottom of the fifth and final frame with two-outs. That’s when Holden Harris beat the play at home by scoring the slide-off victory run: 5-4!

On Friday, in the Varsity-only meeting, the Panthers from Price’s Pinnacle Canyon Academy suffered three triples courtesy of Boede Cox, Conner Smith, including a long three-run base sweeper by left-hitting Payson Harris’s just fair over first down the line drifting out-of-bounds. ‘Coach Pete’ commented, “All had shots: three triples and got RBI’s. Yeah, it was a ‘take-care-of-business’ type game. Hogan [Harris], we did exactly what we needed to pitching. He threw strikes and took us just a minute to get going hitting; but they did just exactly what they needed to do. But it was a great win!


“I like those types of wins, where you get out there and you do it. It was a great win to get.”


Then, recalling a heads-up highlight by Holden from behind the plate catching a foul ball for the out and immediately throwing to first before the runner could return safely, he added, “Holden to Conner, that was a nice play. That last inning lasted enough to get that double-play, the squeeze-play. Yeah, it was good; great game!” Final score: 11- 0, which by the mandatory 10-Run Rule was ended mercifully after the fourth-inning.


Wednesday, September 4, will have seen play with Wayne away, then Panguitch on Friday for the 3 p.m. Varsity and JVs at 5 p.m.

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