High school baseball: Davis, American Fork grab victories to advance in 6A tournament

Davis 5 Lehi 3

It took until the 4th inning for No. 3 Davis to get their first hit of the game, but once they did the hits just kept coming. After being held hitless to start the game, Davis ended up with 10 hits on their way to a 5-3 victory over No. 10 Lehi in 6A tournament play.

“In this part of the bracket, every pitcher you face is going to be good. We’ve never played Lehi before in the 8 years I have been coach, so we haven’t seen them before,” said Davis head coach Josh Godfrey. “The guys were a little unsure of what to expect from their pitcher, so it took a minute, and we were probably a little overly aggressive, but that’s kind of our nature to just go out swinging right away.”

Davis was able to get their first runner of the 4th inning on base and then proceed to get three straight doubles from Jaxon Marble, Brody McGuire and Carter Garrett, resulting in a 3-0 lead for Davis.

Lehi answered in the following inning in the bottom of the 5th. A two-run double by Lehi’s Mays Madsen and a sacrifice fly Cole Ybarra made it a tie ballgame at three runs each.

The Davis offense came in clutch in the top of the 7th. Davis scored on a wild pitch and then on a sac fly later in the inning by Camden Blood to make it a two run advantage.

Sam Sevy came in to pitch for Davis in the bottom of the inning and was able to seal the win for the Darts while striking out one and getting the win.

“At this stage of the tournament and being in the winners bracket, obviously we would like to do it in just one game but if we can just win one of the next two games we’ll be in the state championship,” Godfrey said. “Nobody north of Salt Lake has won the state title since 1974. It’s kind of a why not us mentality. All pitchers have to be ready at this point. It’s going to be a bit of pitcher by committee going forward.”

American Fork 6 Riverton 3

After getting knocked out of the state 6A tournament last year by Riverton, No. 1 American Fork was looking for a little revenge in a rematch from last year.

This time around American Fork got the better of No. 5 Riverton, coming away victorious 6-3 in bracket play of the 6A state tournament.

After losing into Riverton in the playoffs last year and again earlier in the season, there is no doubt that American Fork was looking to return the favor.

“It was a little motivation. We’re trying to focus on what we have this year, and they got us earlier in the year too. So yes, there’s definitely some incentive with that. I’m just proud of the way our guys came out and focused on the business in front of them,” said American Fork head coach Jarod Ingersoll.

American Fork got a dominant performance from starting pitcher Kenny Johnson, who pitched a complete game while striking out seven batters in the victory.

“Kenny was absolutely brilliant for us and that’s what we expected of him; he definitely led the charge. We have to find a way to be a little bit more consistent offensively,” added Ingersoll. “We played good defense and ran the bases well. Our mindset was good, we just have to keep staying aggressive.”

American Fork was looking to be aggressive early, and they did just that, scoring four runs in the top of the 1st to start the game, all with two outs.

Riverton started to claw their way back into the game a little bit, putting three up in the 3rd inning on a three-run inside the park home run by Gage Woods.

American Fork responded and added some much-needed insurance runs in the top of the 5th with a two-run single by Max Miller.

“We came out and wanted to be really aggressive. It gave us some room to work with, but we’re always looking to score, and obviously try to extend the lead when we have it,” said Ingersoll. We had some chances and opportunities to really break it open but didn’t quite come through, but we’ll try to go home and make some adjustments and be ready for tomorrow.”