Buckaroo baseball team drops a couple games

The week following spring break is always challenging for students and athletes to get back into the swing of things after enjoying a little relaxation and time off.

This proved to be the case for the Monticello Baseball team as they traveled to their first region game of the season and hosted their first home game of the season.

After nearly two weeks off, the Buckaroos hopped a bus to Gunnison on Tuesday, March 23 to face the Gunnison Valley Bulldogs who sit atop the 2A Central Region.

Monticello may have wished they had stayed on the bus as the Bulldogs ripped off five runs in the first inning and seven in the second to take a healthy early lead.

Monticello held the home team to one run in the third inning, but a six-run fourth swelled the Bulldog lead to 19-0. Both teams went scoreless in the fifth inning so that total held for the final score.

Monticello was shut out in the game and only managed one hit while committing three errors. Pitcher Hunter Young dropped the game to go 0-2 on the season on the mound.

Two days later on Thursday, March 25 the Bucks, now 0-3 on the season and 0-1 in region play, hoped to get a win with the San Juan Broncos visiting Monticello for an afternoon tilt.

It didn’t take long for San Juan to jump on Monticello with two first-inning runs followed by another run in the second.

Monticello made a game of it by scoring a run in the bottom of the second inning to make the score 3-1 going into the third inning.

The Broncos responded by driving five runs across the plate in the third inning to increase their lead to 8-1. The two teams traded runs in the fourth inning.

Then the Bucks had their best offensive inning of the season with a four-run exhibition in the bottom half of the fifth to pull to within three, 9-6.

But in the top of the sixth, San Juan put six baserunners across the plate to create some breathing room against the upstart Buck team.

The Broncos added another three runs in the top of the seventh to take a commanding 18-6 lead. Monticello drove in one final run in the bottom of the seventh to make the final score 18-7.

Monticello gave up 21 hits in the loss while managing only six of their own. The Bucks ended the game with two errors but won that battle when San Juan committed five.

Starter Devin Hatch dropped the game and fell to 0-2 on the season. A couple Buckaroo highlights from the game were a nice double by Paxton Christensen and an RBI driven in by Josh Kirby.

MHS (0-4 / 0-1) was looking for a win against a 2A opponent when the Altamont Longhorns (4-0 / 0-0) visited Monticello on Tuesday, March 30.

The Buckaroos will also have another shot to beat their rivals from Blanding when they hit the road for an April Fool’s Day intra-classification matchup on Thursday.

Track and field
In what should be expected the rest of the season, the Monticello track team fielded their first full contingent of the year as the boys and girls traveled to Roosevelt on Saturday, March 27 participate in the Strata Invitational at Union High School in Roosevelt.

For the day, the Monticello girls scored 6.75 points and placed ninth out of ten teams attending the meet.

The Lady Bucks had their best success in the field events, especially the high jump where Berlynn Black cleared 4-10 to place fourth followed by cousin Cami Lewis who placed seventh by jumping 4-6. Lewis also placed 12th in the long jump by leaping 14-1.

The team also placed well in the 100-meter hurdles with Berlynn Black finishing eighth with a time of 20.0 and Sadie Adair and Cami Lewis close behind with season-best 14th and 15th place results with times of 20.63 and 20.69.

Shayla Pehrson placed ninth in the 3200 with a time of 16:16 and followed that up with a 19th place finish in the 1600, running a 7:06.

Other top twenty finishes were accomplished by Berlynn Black – 18th in the 200-meter (31.13), Shayla Pehrson – 15th in the 300 hurdles (1:00.87) and Kamron Yoakam – 16th in the 300 hurdles (1:01.19).

The boys scored 87 points to finish second to the host Union Cougars who scored 169. The Bucks edged 2A rival Duchesne by 1.5 points. 4A Uintah placed fourth with 81 points.

The boys had a fairly balanced meet, scoring in most disciplines. In the speed events, Eric Montague secured a sixth-place finish when he ran a 24.51 in the 200-meter. Boston Freestone also finished sixth in the 400 with a 56.93.

Monticello scored ten points in the 1600-meter when Alan Pettit crossed the finish line in 4:47.21 to place first overall. Teammate Cory Bunker was only a hair slower, but finished third with a time of 4:47.46. 

There was no near miss in the 3200 but Bunker had to work to beat a runner from Union by nearly a second, running a time of 10:23.90. 

Buckaroo Camden Lewis placed second and third in the 110-meter and 300 hurdles with times of 18:46 and 45.34 in those events. The Bucks also placed second out of three participating schools running a time of 3:57.04.

In the field events, Cedar English and Boston Freestone placed second and third in the high jump with jumps of 5-10 and 5-8. Cedar got the win in the long jump with a 22-4.5 in the finals.

In the discus, Robert Musselman claimed sixth place when he tossed the disc 100-5.5 in the finals. He followed that effort with a fifth-place finish in the shot put, tossing the shot 39-9 in the preliminaries.

In the javelin, Monticello scored good points when Eric Montague placed third overall with a heave of 147-0. Cory Bunker got sixth with his throw of 129-2.

The MHS track team is not in action this weekend. Next weekend, on Saturday, April 9, the teams won’t have to get out of bed nearly as early as usual as the bus trip will only be to Blanding for the San Juan Invitational at the San Juan High School track.

Girls golf
Apparently, many of the 2A girls golf teams are very much fair-weather golfers because the March 25 match scheduled in Price at the Carbon County Country Club was cancelled due to weather.

A frustrated Monticello Head Coach, Nathan Chamberlain, said, “Our next match isn’t until Tuesday, April 13, unless they cancel that one as well.”