The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Program growing
by Lachie Steven
The Parks and Rec Youth Baseball season kicked off this week with the U12 (Majors) taking on Gunnison at Tommy V Field. Blake Bacani opened proceedings from the mound as the starting pitcher and led off with a strike-out, followed up with an unassisted out by Robert Spencer at first base on the batter in the four hole.
A few fielding errors with two outs cost the Blizzards and runs were leaked. In the bottom of the first, Even Medell started what would be a memorable night, taking a double with two outs. Evan finished the day batting three for three and after taking the pitcher’s mound at the top of the third managed six strikeouts out of eight batters faced with one run and one walk conceded!
Jack Solomon took to the pitcher’s mound to make his career pitching debut and started with a strikeout at his first batter faced. In field there were some great catches and some room for improvement. Veteran Riley Thomson held on to a rainmaker at second base and Ellis Brown took a neat catch on a pop fly at third.
The Crested Butte Blizzard featured four baseball career debutants in Donovan Gagen, Brier Wight, Gage Goodnough and Jonah Zobs and all made strong contributions including some base hits and putting runs on the board. Jimmy Stevens in his first and last game for the season before heading back to Australia managed an RBI in the third inning to get Zac Suazo home and Charlie Reamer got reward for some strong plays making it home in the third after a base hit and RBI double by Robert Spencer.
All in all, it was a fun night to be playing ball at the base of the Butte in front of a good crowd. The much more experienced and well-practiced Gunnison Team played a strong but very sportsman like community game of ball that helped our CB team ease into the season in what was only our second “training” session.
We look forward to watching the Majors develop in the coming weeks after some more time on the training track. Gunnison took the game 24-8. The roster still has spots open for the U8, U10, U12, U15 and girls’ softball team, along with paid umpiring and assistant coaching roles. Inquire at Parks and Rec for more detail.
