The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“They were showing more killer instinct and wanting to make the play”
It’s been a tough season for the Crested Butte Blue Jackets baseball team in the Western Slope Babe Ruth league. While the Blue Jackets roster is almost entirely on the younger end of the 13-15-year-old age class, their opponents are almost entirely at the upper end.
As a result, the Blue Jackets managed just one win all season against the Western Slope powerhouses and oftentimes were subjected to landslide defeats. Nevertheless, the team and their coaches, Vann Taylor and Mikey Weil, remained committed to the season in hopes that the hard work now would pay off later.
“I feel like we have a core foundation of eight players who were really committed at every practice and every game,” says Taylor.
On Wednesday, July 2 they got a glimpse of how the next couple of years could go as they faced a Gunnison team at Tommy V Field comprised of players the same age as the Blue Jackets and came away with a 17-6 win.
“Our guys came into this game with 100 times more confidence than any other game all season,” says Taylor. “All the other teams have players 14 and 15 years old, much bigger, and so we didn’t feel like we were coming out facing a bunch of monsters.”
Gunnison jumped on Crested Butte in the top of the first. While Joseph Cummins was pitching well, including recording two strikeouts in the first inning, a couple of throwing miscues coupled with a few base hits allowed Gunnison to take an early 4-0 lead.
The Blue Jackets responded immediately in the bottom of the first, paced by quality hitting up and down the batting order. Two weeks ago the Blue Jackets were making contact but hitting into easy outs and while Taylor was pleased with the contact, he knew the team needed better contact.
On Wednesday, the Blue Jackets made said contact early on led off by Aiden Gunderson with a single. Turner Petersen walked and then Tommy Linehan laid down a near-perfect bunt to advance the runners that turned into a couple of Blue Jackets runs, as the throw to first missed its mark. Toby Goldberg followed up with an RBI double and then Dante Marchitelli cracked a two-RBI double to left and scored to put the Blue Jackets up 5-4.
“Mikey was able to spend time with the kids doing just batting practice in the batting cage, and I noticed after that that we were squaring the ball up much better,” says Taylor.
Gunnison tied it up 5-5 in the top of the second and the Blue Jackets took over from there, paced by solid pitching from Cummins, quality hits and stout defense.
The top of the order did their job getting on base and the middle of the batting order followed up, doing their job at the plate driving runs in.
Gunderson, Goldberg and Marchitelli connected again to drive in four more Blue Jackets and by the fourth inning, Crested Butte was sitting on an 11-5 lead.
Gunnison threatened in the top of the fourth, scoring a run on a passed ball and loading the bases but the Blue Jackets defense clamped down. Marchitelli flagged down a high chop hit up the middle to get one out and Gunderson scooped up a grounder at first to get the final out, holding Gunnison to the lone run maintaining their sizeable lead.
“We’ve been working on being more aggressive and being comfortable playing aggressive in the game,” explains Taylor. “They were showing more killer instinct and wanting to make the play.”
The Blue Jackets added another three runs to their lead in the bottom of the fourth inning as a couple base hits put ducks on the pond and Daniel O’Brien flared a two RBI double down the left field line.
Cummins fanned another hitter in the top of the fifth inning for a total of six strikeouts on the day and the infield did the rest highlighted by Turner Petersen, who charged on a grounder and fired to first from short, to end Gunnison’s offense before it could get started.
Goldberg and O’Brien combined to drive in three more runs in the bottom of the fifth for a 17-6 lead as the umpires enforced the 10-run rule bringing the game to a close.
The Blue Jackets will close out the season for good next weekend as they head to a tournament in Montrose July 19-20. As for the extended forecast, Taylor hopes to build off of what they worked so hard on this year.
“The core group this year are going to be leaders in the future and they’re already talking about next season,” says Taylor. “I really hope that the program continues to grow and that these kids can play at the under-18 level here.”
