Monticello baseball team opens season with two wins, two losses in past week’s action
by Rhett Sifford
Sports Editor
The Monticello High School baseball team played a busy and eventful four-game opening week, splitting their first games of the season.
The Buckaroos opened with a convincing 10-1 against Monument Valley in Kayenta, AZ on Tuesday, March 3. The team collected nine hits and stole eight bases in the victory.
Senior Jackson Keyes led the way offensively with an impressive 3-for-4 day. He hit two doubles, drove in two runs and scored two more. Junior Triston Felix was 2-for-4 with one double, two RBIs, and two runs scored.
Junior Cache Young was 2-for-3 on the day with one double, two RBIs, and three runs scored. Arturo Gutierrez got a hit and scored two runs for MHS and Kord Young also had one hit.
Felix got the win on the mound for the Bucks, throwing three innings of no-hit ball. He struck out seven of the ten batters he faced.
Keys pitched three innings, allowing two hits and striking out six Mustang batters. Cache Young threw one inning, walking two.
On Friday and Saturday, March 6-7 Monticello played in the Grand Invitational in Moab, where they picked up another lopsided win in game one, 10-3 over the host Red Devils.
The Bucks trailed 3-2 before they blew the game open with a six-run fifth inning. With a nearly identical stat line as the one he had in Kayenta Jackson Keyes went 3-for-4 with one double, two RBIs, and two runs scored.
Triston Felix collected two hits in four at-bats with a triple, two RBIs, and a run scored. Jaeden Camacho was 1-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored.
Cache Young was 1-for-2 with a triple, two RBIs, and one run scored. Others who didn’t register hits but scored runs for Monticello included Gutierrez (2), Diego Cortez (1), Kord Young (1), and Jaxson Breedlove (1).
Keyes pitched all six innings for the Bucks, allowing three runs on three hits and five walks, striking out eight of the 28 Red Devil batters he faced.
The remainder of the weekend was a bit less exciting for Monticello as they suffered a 16-5 loss to Parowan and a 10-3 loss to Delta to close out the Grand Invitational.
Kord Young was 2-for-3 with a run scored against Parowan and freshman Grant Wigginton was 1-for-1, also scoring a run. Felix and Ethan Lee registered the only two RBIs in the game.
The Buckaroos trailed by just one run in the Delta game until the Rabbits plated seven in the sixth inning.
Keyes hammered the 12th home run of his career, a solo shot over the right field fence. Triston Felix and Kord Young collected two hits apiece in the loss.
Monticello takes their 2-2 record into a much lighter week this week. On Friday, March 13 the team will travel into Colorado to take on the Dolores Bears.