LOGAN—Sky View tied Friday’s matchup with Valley rival Logan, after trailing 3-0 midway through the game. That elation was short-lived, however, when Grizzly sophomore Russell Murphy drove in the winning run in the bottom of the eighth inning with a walk-off shot to deep left field.

Playing in only his third varsity game of the season, Murphy came up big for the Grizzlies (3-10, 2-5) in the clutch. Following the seventh inning heroics of Bobcat sophomore Jason Oliverson, Murphy had some heroics of his own.

With a man on second and two outs, Murphy knocked a deep ball just out of the reach of Oliverson and center fielder Colton Arave to secure the victory and deal another blow to the Bobcats (1-13, 1-7).

“I was really close, me and Colton were close to colliding,” Oliverson said of the final play. “There was just a little bit of confusion, we didn’t talk.”

Murphy, though, was worried the hit might not be enough. In his first at-bat, the sophomore — who finished the day 2-for-4 — sent what appeared to be a game-breaking shot to deep right field with the bases loaded. SV’s Tyler Liechty was just able to track down the ball though, and prevent any runs from scoring.

“Earlier in the game I’d hit one to right, and I thought the same thing was going to happen too,” Murphy said. “I thought Jason was going to get it, but it ended up that it went right between them, so it was a good thing.”

Early on, however, it didn’t appear like Friday’s contest was going to need any late game heroics. Normally a catcher, Logan’s Tanner Gittins befuddled the Cats offense through the first five innings, holding them scoreless. Bobcat pitcher Cole Godfrey pitched a good game, but despite his efforts, SV headed into the sixth inning with no momentum and on the wrong side of a 3-0 hole.

That’s when things got interesting.

Arave started things off with a double down the third base line — a hit he was finally able to get after sending two similar shots just foul. Oliverson followed up Arave’s double with a sac-bunt, but the ball was overthrown and Arave scored while Oliverson advanced to second base.

Following Oliverson, the Bobcats continued to surge. Godfrey connected on an RBI-single as he scored Oliverson to pull the Cats within one. SV nearly got the tying run in that same inning, but a close play at first base retired the inning for the Bobcats who left two runners on base.

“We’ve just got to hit in the early innings, not wait until the last to get up and start hitting,” Oliverson said. “(We need to) do it the whole game.”

Oliverson continued his stellar play with his game tying RBI-triple in the seventh and Godfrey retired all three Grizzly batters in the bottom of the seventh to set up the extra-inning fireworks.

Sky View had a chance to put some points on the board in the top of the eighth inning when Brayden Anderson got on base with a single, but the Cats could muster no more offense against relief pitcher Alex Tyler after that.

“We got a guy on, we got him over,” SV head coach Bardett Bagley said. “We were just trucking along and then the same story, just hitting it right at somebody again. For two teams that haven’t played very well, that’s a pretty good ballgame, and pretty clean ballgame. We just didn’t bring our bats that first little bit.”

The Bobcats will be back in action Tuesday, April 27 at 3:30 p.m. when they play Ogden at home.