In what was somewhat of a Region 5 pillow-fight, the Logan Grizzlies roughed up and made short work of the Sky View Bobcats winning 12-2 in six innings. The Bobcats (3-16, 3-10 Region 5) continue to struggle this season and fall to fifth place where they will finish regardless of the outcome in their season finale against second place Mountain Crest Mustangs.

“It’s been hard this season to finish strong,” pitcher Seth Van Dyke said. “Usually we just play half a game. We haven’t put a full game together.”

Unfortunately for the Bobcats they haven’t been unfamiliar with double digit losses; this is their seventh of the season. Van Dyke was on the mound when the Bobcats started unraveling. Unfortunately it was only the first inning. Van Dyke and the Bobcat defense allowed two runs on two errors and one hit, as 10 batters came to the plate.

“That’s High School baseball, you’ve gotta put the ball in play,” Grizzlies head coach Mike Hansen said.

In the bottom of the second Van Dyke and the Bobcats didn’t help their 2-0 deficit. The Grizzlies got things going with back-to-back doubles. Van Dyke settled down for a moment and got Grant Vernier to pop-out to first base, but that was the only Van Dyke would account for. Two walks and two errors later the Grizzlies scored three more runs.

“It’s discouraging,” Van Dyke said. “It seems like when we make on error, it leads to another error. We need to hit as a team as stay consistent. We need to hit in the gaps instead of at people.”

Taylor Kunz entered the game and got off to a rocky start as well, hitting his first batter, and allowing a sacrifice fly RBI to Logan’s Tanner Gittins. Kunz’s best inning came in the bottom of the third as held the Grizzlies scoreless. Bobcats’ third baseman Derrick Nield helped snagging a bullet of the bat of Greg Vernier and tagging out the runner at third.

Grizzlies ace Alex Tyler pitched five brilliant innings of baseball, and only faltered a little in the top half of the fourth inning. Cole Godfrey led off the inning with a single and then advanced to second on a mishandled pick-off attempt by Tyler. Van Dyke then hit an RBI single; however the momentum wouldn’t last long. Kunz got in to early trouble in the bottom of the fourth inning walking off the lead-off batter and then allowing him to advance to second on an errant pick-off attempt, forcing Bobcat’s head coach Bardett Bagley to go the bullpen once again.

When asked what exactly has gone wrong with Bobcats this year Bagley said, “It’s a long season with a lot of losses. If I knew I guess I would have it fixed. We’re not hitting the ball we’re not fielding the ball. You can’t win games like that.”

Junior Colton Arave came in to try and settle things down. Things looked promising for Arave as he forced a foul-out to the first batter he faced, but then the Grizzlies bats started to warm up again. Two walks and two hits later found Logan’s Garrett Hanke at the plate and he pulled through with three-run two out RBI double, pushing the score to 10-1 in favor of the Grizzlies.

By the bottom of the sixth inning the Grizzlies held an eight run lead and the Bobcats decided they had had enough. Arave struck-out the first batter he faced, walked the second, forced the third to fly-out and then the familiar inconsistent loose defense came back. With two out left, Arave walked the next batter and the Bobcat defense was unable to put away the next two grounders.

Coach Bagley was obviously disappointed with the effort," We talked about it all week: getting some energy to get up for these guys. It shouldn’t be hard to get up for these guys. We just came out flat."

The Cats finish their season at home against Mtn. Crest for senior day on Friday, May 7th. At this point the Cats have only pride to play for.

“At this point we’re just playing for pride and we’ve got to get better,” Bagley said.