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Baseball: Cedaredge takes two in Basalt

Jon Maletz
The Aspen Times
Aspen, CO Colorado

BASALT – The Basalt offense mustered just three runs and three hits in Saturday’s doubleheader with Cedaredge. The result: a lost afternoon on the diamond for the home team.

While their hurlers were dominant, the Bruins bats wore out Longhorns pitching en route to lopsided 14-0 and 15-3 victories.

Both games were shortened to five innings because of the mercy rule.



“We never really got anything going,” Basalt head coach Mike Hoffman admitted. “Spring break killed us as far as practice time. We’ve got a lot to work on.”

The Longhorns (0-6) were without their full compliment of players in Saturday’s opener; Hoffman opted to bench four seniors who missed last week’s doubleheader in Olathe because of spring break.




The group took the field in the second game, but it did little to change Basalt’s fortunes.

Leadoff man Peter Williamson lined the first pitch he saw from Longhorns starter Tanner Banc up the middle for a single, and Cedaredge took off. All told, it piled up eight hits, scored eight runs and sent 11 to the plate in the first inning.

Dylan Nicholas and Aaron Henrie hit RBI singles, Greg Edgington and Trent Walker drove in runs with doubles and Williamson knocked in two with a ringing double to the wall in left. He later scored on an overthrow.

“The errors are just killing us,” said Hoffman, who squad committed seven miscues in Game 2. “We’re keeping our pitchers out there too long each inning, so we have to pull them early.”

Bruins starter Sterling Rose made the lead hold up – and then some. The hard-throwing right hander worked around a leadoff walk in the bottom of the first by striking out Tucker Jenkins and inducing a 1-6-3 double play.

He struck out two batters in both the second and third innings and faced just one over the minimum.

“We need to get these guys in the cage a little bit more, crank up the speed and start showing them faster pitching,” Hoffman said.

Walker, who replaced Rose in the fourth, struggled mightily with his control but still managed to keep Basalt at bay. He surrendered a bases-loaded walk to Johnson Emerson in the fourth, then two unearned runs during a sluggish fifth in which a Cedaredge defense filled mostly with reserves committed three errors.

No matter. This one was never in doubt, especially after the Bruins plated five more runs in the top of the fifth.

Williamson paced the visitors with three hits and four runs scored. Dylan Nicholas also produced three hits, while Drew Beach and Edgington each pitched in with two.

The Longhorns will look to turn things around at 4 p.m. Tuesday, when they visit Coal Ridge.

“We’ve got to pick up a win,” Hoffman said. “We’ve got to get some motivation going, get a little bit of spirit back in our game.”

jmaletz@aspentimes.com