Story co-authored by Ashley Stevens.

Matthew Legere and Ashley Stevens are Master’s Student at ASU Cronkite School of Journalism assigned to cover Hamilton and Mountain Ridge High School for AZPreps365.com

GLENDALE — Unless referring to the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, the game of baseball is not built for perfection. In a game of failures and frustrations, a great team is not defined by one loss here or there, but rather how they respond when in the face of adversity – and Hamilton would respond to Saturday night’s Boras Classic Championship loss in a big way. 

After posting a 14-run first inning, the Huskies narrowly avoided disaster and escaped Monday afternoon's nailbiter with a 15-14 win at Mountain Ridge, their first conference opponent in nearly two weeks.

Taking the mound for the Mountain Lions was Grand Canyon University commit Jace Smith, who went just two-thirds of an inning while allowing 10 of 11 batters to cross home plate. The Mountain Ridge ace surrendered seven hits, hit two batters and walked another before handing the ball off to senior right-hander Ameer McGee. 

The Huskies notched 19 plate appearances and collected 11 hits in the first, batting through the lineup twice before Huskies outfielder Gavin Turley struck out in his third at-bat of the inning to end the 14-run marathon. 

The offensive onslaught was led largely in part by four Husky home runs, including a grand slam from Ryan Kucherak (1), a three-run home run from Kole Klecker (3), and two-run home runs from Josh Tiedemann (5) and Logan Saloman (1).

In addition to his two-for-three day at the plate, Saloman battled on the mound for the Huskies, managing to surrender just two runs on seven hits and two walks through three innings pitched.

Hamilton senior Logan Saloman threw three innings on the mound to go along with a 2-for-3 day at the plate, including a double, a home run, and three RBI. (Matthew Legere photo/ AZPreps365)Roch Cholowsky and Prince DeBoskie combined to go 4-for-7 with three singles, a double, and five runs scored. Cholowsky’s second inning run extended the Huskies lead to 15-2, at which point Hamilton head coach Mike Woods felt comfortable with the lead and turned the game over to Carson Johnson, Jeremy Jones, and the rest of the Huskies' bench.

Taking full advantage of the Huskies five second-inning replacements and allowing the offense an opportunity to make its monstrous climb back into competitive territory, the Mountain Lion bullpen was lights out from the second inning onwards, allowing no hits, no runs, and just three walks through the final five innings of play.

“When you shut down the engine, it's hard to get the engine going again, and I am the one who shut the engine down,” Woods confessed. “Mountain Ridge is arguably one of the best teams in 6A. They're a very good baseball team. They just kept coming and we found ourselves in an unfortunate situation.”

The hitting prowess of Mountain Ridge was powered by a combined three-home run, 10-RBI performance by junior-senior duo Cooper Neville and Zach Yorke, who helped to chip away at what was once a 13-run deficit entering the bottom half of the fourth. 

“We know we're one of the best offensive teams in the state,” Yorke said. “We can hang with anyone. The wind was blowing out today, so we knew we were going to score some runs; but, unfortunately we just couldn't quite get enough.”

Mountain Ridge senior Zach Yorke threw two scoreless innings on the mound to go along with a 3-for-4 day at the plate, including two home runs and five RBI. (Matthew Legere photo/ AZPreps365)Neville, a junior infielder for the Mountain Lions finished 3-for-4 at the plate with a three-run home run, five RBI, and three runs scored. 

Yorke, a senior catcher for the Mountain Lions, also finished 3-for-4 with five RBI at the plate. The GCU commit mashed a two-run home run and three-run home run in his final two at-bats of the day, the second of which came in the bottom of the seventh inning to shorten the deficit to just a one-run ballgame.

Setting the table for the two Mountain Lion sluggers was sophomore second baseman Jackson Forbes, who reached base successfully on all five trips to the plate. The Arizona commit finished 4-for-4 with two singles, two doubles, two RBI, and two runs scored. 

“Forbes has been grinding with me in the cage,” Yorke said. “I've been struggling as of late, so I’m just trying to work on getting my foot down early and simplifying everything at the plate – shorten up the swing a little bit.”

Though he surely never expected to be in this situation, Woods had to call upon fellow Arizona commit Will Shelor–the tenth pitcher used in the game for either side– to come out of the bullpen and strike out the game's final two batters to secure the victory and shut the door on what would have been a catastrophic blown-lead for the Huskies. 

Despite the loss, Mountain Ridge head coach Eddie Bonine praised his team for its ability to stay focused and fight their way back into the game. He encouraged his offense to never give up an at-bat and to maintain pressure on their opponents no matter how big or small the deficit may seem.

“We're a team that has state championship aspirations and that's one of the best teams in the state every year,” Bonine said. “We’ve just got to continue to get better on both sides of the baseball and know that this will be a scary team when both get going.”

Hamilton (7-0) and Mountain Ridge (3-1) both face off against 6A Desert Southwest foes in their next matchup, with the Mountain Lions hosting Kofa at 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday and the Huskies traveling to San Luis (5-2) at 3:45 p.m. on Friday.