LAS VEGAS – Snow Canyon finally tossed the monkey off its back, and the Warriors did it with a complete team effort.
Bishop Gorman (Nevada) had beaten Snow Canyon five times in-a-row before Wednesday’s non-region matchup between the two teams. In fact, a couple of them got ugly, like identical 10-0 wins by the Gaels in 2015 and 2016. But Bishop Gorman, which came into the game with a 15-3 record and is 76-16 the past 2 1/2 seasons, probably hasn’t seen a pitcher like Breck Eichelberger during that stretch.
“This was an awesome win, and Breck really pitched well,” SC coach Reed Secrist said. “He was at the top of his game. There were 14 Major League scouts at the game, and one of them, the Marlins scout, said he’d been watching Bishop Gorman games for a long time and that’s the best pitching performance he’d ever seen against them.”
Eichelberger kept his astounding 0.00 earned run average perfect in tossing five innings of three-hit ball, then Jed Jensen came on and was perfect the final two innings as Snow Canyon defeated Bishop Gorman 7-0 Wednesday afternoon at BGHS.
“Obviously this gives our program a lot of confidence,” Secrist said. “We’ve been trying to beat those guys for six years and we finally got it done. This is big for us after letting Cedar jump back into the game last week. We got punched in the face and we still won, but our confidence was shaken a little. We had our wakeup call and today we showed up.”
To counter Eichelberger, Bishop Gorman threw ace Dutch Landis, who entered the game with a 5-0 record and an ERA of 0.63. Landis, whose fastball was clocked in the 90 miles-an-hour range in the game, dueled Eichelberger tooth-and-nail. But the Warriors scraped across a run in the first and another in the fifth off of Landis, then destroyed the Gaels relievers in the sixth and seventh.
Eichelberger, meanwhile, wriggled out of a couple of jams. After SC took a 1-0 lead on an RBI walk by Zack Nowatzke in the top of the first, Bishop Gorman threatened with a triple and a walk with one out in the bottom half. But Eichelberger got a line-out to second and a strikeout to get out of the jam.
Gorman also got two on in the third, but a 6-4-3 double play ended that threat as well. In the top of the fifth, Braden Baker singled and stole second. He went to third on a wild pitch and then came home with the second run of the game on another wild one by Landis, making it 2-0.
The Gaels loaded the bases in the bottom of the fifth after an error, a single and an intentional walk with two outs. But Eichelberger finished his day by getting Bishop Gorman cleanup hitter Christian Lamar to fan at a high fastball. Lamar came into the game hitting .382 with four home runs and 24 RBIs.
Tyler Curtis came on in relief of Landis to start the sixth and the Warriors jumped all over him. Austin Deming and Tim Shakespeare led off with consecutive singles. After a fielder’s choice, Stephen Gubler singled to center to make it 3-0. Jensen followed with a single in the hole on the left side to make it 4-0.
With two outs, Brock Secrist brought home another run with a single to left field and Austin Staheli completed the four-run rally with a double to left that made it 6-0.
Deming completed the scoring in the top of the seventh by smashing a home run to left field to lead off the inning. Jensen did the rest, retiring Bishop Gorman in order in the sixth and seventh, including three strikeouts.
“That Bishop Gorman team has put up a lot of runs on some decent teams,” Secrist said. “We saw a pretty good pitcher, much like the guys we’ll see in Region 9, guys like (Drew) Thorpe and (Tyson) Fisher. So this was good preparation.”
Deming finished 2 for 4 with two runs scored and an RBI. Shakespeare also had two hits as Snow Canyon tallied nine base knocks in the contest. Eichelberger and Jensen combined to allow just three hits and seven strikeouts.
The Warriors play two against Hurricane next week, starting with a Tuesday contest at Tiger Field.
Tuesday’s Region 9 results
Pine View 5, Cedar 0
Dixie 10, Canyon View 0
Desert Hills 9, Hurricane 2
Wednesday’s result
Snow Canyon 7, Bishop Gorman (Nev.) 0
Region 9 standings (region, overall)
Snow Canyon 6-0, 18-1
Dixie 5-0, 16-2
Pine View 3-2, 10-3
Desert Hills 4-3, 11-4
Cedar 3-4, 8-8
Hurricane 0-5, 7-9
Canyon View 0-7, 5-11
Friday’s games
Pine View at Cedar, 4 p.m.
Canyon View at Dixie, 7:30 p.m.
Desert Hills at Hurricane, 7:30 p.m.
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