Battle Mountain baseball holds off Eagle Valley in dramatic rematch (2024)

Battle Mountain’s 2024 baseball season hasn’t gone as well as some of the players would have hoped. But on Monday, they got the one win they really wanted.

“Last time for some of us playing against these guys,” said Battle Mountain outfielder Owen Koontz. “We’ve been playing these guys forever. Since elementary school — since WECMRD days — so, definitely wanted to leave it on a good note.”

Koontz and Co. made sure that happened. After the Devils tied things up with a four-run sixth-inning rally, the Huskies outfield provided multiple highlight reels in preserving the 5-4 victory. Koontz said his team — which came into the game with a 2-9 record — had “nothing to lose” against Eagle Valley, which defeated Battle Mountain 13-5 a month ago.

“Our record isn’t showing what we think we could be at,” the senior continued. “But we were coming against a team we know we’re capable of beating, so why not? Why not just go out and play our hardest? And that’s what we did.”

Grady Devins scored on a wild pitch and Franco Moreno drove in a run to put the Huskies up 2-0 in the top of the first inning. On the mound, Sutton Dodds pitched five flawless innings, fostering frustration amongst the vaunted Devil bats at the top of the lineup.

“We just fed off that,” said Dodds, who pitched a shutout through the top of the sixth. “(I) just stayed focused mentally. I mean, I came in fired up. It was shove day for sure.”

The Huskies added a third run in the third inning and another in the fifth to go up 4-0. Eagle Valley struggled to get the bats going and repeatedly left runners in scoring position.

“We’ve had a hard time recently at the plate. I feel like a lot of the times we’ll take that energy into the field,” said Devils head coach Josh Stoneking, who was totally satisfied with the efforts of his three pitchers.

“Nolan (Emrich) and Logan (Dreschler) threw strikes and Elias (Pena) came in (in the seventh) and did what we needed him to do,” the coach continued. “But it feels right now like we don’t have the heart.”

Stoneking said he thinks his team’s recent six-game skid has “created a bit of desperation” at the top of the lineup. “I think a lot of times they get frustrated and try to swing hard instead of create quality contact,” he added.

The bottom of the Devils lineup started the sixth-inning rally. A Collin Spaeth double led to Dodds getting replaced by his younger brother, Shaeffer. The junior struggled to pinpoint his pitches, walking three of the next four batters. Devils freshman Ricardo Gutierrez drove in a run to make it 4-3 before Pena’s sacrifice fly tied things up with only one out.

Battle Mountain coach Jeff Townsend gathered his infield at the mound, but kept the younger Dodds on it. Shaeffer said Sutton gave him “a word of encouragement.”

“Just stay out of your head and go get the next guy,” Shaeffer Dodds recalled.

Dodds got Jack Robinson out on an infield fly, bringing slugger Jacob Loupe to the plate.The cleanup batter lined a deep shot to center field and was halfway around first when Finn Sullivan — who said he was “feeling down” at the time after failing to connect on a play at the plate earlier in the inning — made a diving catch right in front of the 398-foot centerfield fence.

“I just got ready for the next play,” Sullivan said. “It was smoked into the gap by a great hitter. I was sprinting as hard as I could and laid out at the last second and it’s in my glove.”

Koontz and Sullivan celebrated the whole way back to the dugout after what would become a game-saving play.

“We were hyped up,” Sullivan said.

“He got up screaming,” Koontz added. “Left his hat behind.”

Pena walked Sullivan to open the bottom half of the inning. Sullivan advanced to second on Hans Wittenberg‘s perfectly-placed bunt. Then, Devils’ first baseman James Bivins made a heads up hustle play to catch Grady Devins’ foul-ball down the right field line, bringing Shaeffer Dodds to the plate with two outs. The junior belted two-two pitch to left field to score Sullivan from second.

“It was rough on the mound, so when I came back in to hit, I knew I had a job to do,” Dodds said. “I knew what happened on themound was in the past. So, I went out and battled at the plate and it worked out in the end.”

When Moreno came to the mound to close things out in his final I-70 rivalry game, he said he was “ready to win the game.”

“We had the lead and I knew my defense could make fantastic plays out there,” he said.

“We were like, ‘you guys got a defense behind you. Don’t be afraid to put it over the plate,'” Koontz said. “And that’s what we saw there from Franco in that last inning.”

Moreno walked Spaeth to open the inning before Bivins lined one deep to left field at the next at bat. But Battle Mountain left-fielder Blake Roberts swooped into the gap for another game-changing catch. He wasn’t done, either.

“I just threw it to first — no fly zone,” he said of catching Spaeth on the tag up for a double play. Colter Blakey sent the next one deep to center, but Koontz was there for the final out. The Huskies improved to 3-9 on the season, but the win was more redemptive than records can reveal.

“I mean it’s kind of been a rough season, so a game like this proved we could turn things around,” Shaeffer Dodds said.

“There’s rough games and rough innings, but you can still battle and pull out with a win.”