High school baseball: Injured Schmidt is back for Bruins' playoff push
Prior to this baseball season, most expected the junk-ball thrower to be the top hurler in Region 7. Unfortunately, Schmidt tore his ACL in Mountain View's final regular season basketball game and the injury has made it so he hasn't really been a factor much on the Bruins' staff — that is, until Monday.
Throwing with a brace on his knee, Schmidt came in during the second inning and the Bruins trailing 6-5 and didn't allow Springville to score another run the rest of the way in Mountain View's vital 11-6 victory. During the six-inning shutout span, Schmidt allowed five harmless hits, struck out five and enticed seven ground-ball outs.
"This is why I had to come back," Schmidt said. "I didn't want to miss the whole season because of games like this. I want the ball in my hand when it matters."
The win, combined with Orem's loss Monday to Payson, clinches at least a share of the league crown for Mountain View. If the Bruins defeat Tooele at home today, they are Region 7 champions.
"Tons of people contributed to this win," Schmidt said.
Also, should Springville and Orem finish tied for second, the Tigers would likely get that tie-breaker by virtue of defeating Mountain View once. However, the league might just go to a coin flip.
Monday's game started out like it was going to be a slugfest. The Bruins scored four in the top of the first on a two-run double by Marcus Draper, an RBI single by Travis Jackman and a two-out error.
The Red Devils came right back in the bottom half with a five- spot to take a 5-4 lead. Mark DeWyze had an RBI triple, Ben Doxey an RBI grounder, Colton Ramon an RBI double and Corey MacMurdo a towering home run.
Mountain View tied the game 5-5 with a run in the second on Tanner Young's RBI double. But Springville regained the lead with a run in the bottom half and looked like it was going to tack on a few more, until Bruins' coach Chris Cooper went to Schmidt with no outs and a runner on base. The senior finished out that inning with no more damage and only allowed one Springville runner past second base the next five innings.
"I haven't been able to spot my fastball very much, but today I finally had it all working," Schmidt said.
Meanwhile, Mountain View's offense continued to click. Kyle Kendall led off the fourth with a double to deep center and scored to tie the game 6-6. In the fifth, Grayson West and Mark Garrett both had RBI doubles in a three-run inning to put the Bruins ahead for good. Two two-out runs in the seventh, a rally that started with a Springville error, put a little icing on the cake. Mountain View's Caleb Loveland topped it off when he tripled to deep right and scored when the outfielder dropped the ball as he went to throw it.
"Mountain View just did a better job of getting hits in key situations and they played better defense than us," Springville coach Willy Child said.
E-mail: jimr@desnews.com
Recent comments
Mountain view is and has always been known as a class act, And as...
Class Act | May 8, 2008 at 10:30 p.m.
We are proud of our Bruins baseball team for winning Region 7. Even...
Mountain View fan | May 7, 2008 at 10:08 a.m.
Never seen such poor sportsmanship in my life.
MV fans | May 6, 2008 at 7:57 p.m.
