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Summit Extreme Black Diamonds go 0-6 in week 3

Susan Gilmore
sgilmore@summitdaily.com

Coming up this week

June 27, noon and 2 p.m. — at Carbondale Cowboys

June 29, noon and 2 p.m. — Home against Grand Junction Rocky Mountain Oysters

If you showed up late for the first game of this doubleheader, you missed half the action. Summit jumped out to an early lead, dropping three runs on the Vail Vipers in the first inning. The Vipers answered with three runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning, then doubled down with another three runs in the second. Summit kept the game close as catcher Nick Henry again helped the cause with three RBIs, and leftie Damien Balboa struck out six in four innings of work. A three-run fifth inning by the Vipers put Summit in the hole, 4-11. Summit’s last-inning heroics were enough to add two runs to the board, but not enough to change the final outcome with Summit falling to Vail 6-12.

The second game of the doubleheader set up early as a pitching duel. It remained a scoreless affair through the first two innings, with Vail breaking the tie with a couple runs in the bottom of the third to take a two-run lead. The Black Diamonds trailed throughout the game despite strong performances from Thomas Robinson, who put in four innings of work on the mound, and Summit High grad Andrew Shaw, who struck out three batters in the game.

With the score at 0-3 in Vail’s favor heading into the fifth, Summit finally managed to get on the board with two runs of their own. Vail answered in the bottom half of the inning notching seven runs, which was more than enough for the win, sending Summit home with a 2-10 loss.



GAME 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 FINAL



SUMMIT 3 0 1 0 0 0 2 6

VV 3 3 0 2 3 1 X 12

GAME 2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 FINAL

SUMMIT 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2

VV 0 0 2 1 7 0 X 10

June 22 at Game Day Denver

On June 22, the Black Diamonds headed to Denver for their first night games of the season, taking on the GameDay Saints. In the first game of the doubleheader, Daniel Gunnerson pitched six solid innings for the Black Diamonds. The biggest blemish on his record came in the second inning when he allowed three runs, and the Saints jumped out to an early 3-0 lead. Gunnerson quickly settled in and only allowed one more run in the performance, pitching a complete game. The bats never quite got going for Summit though, and the Black Diamonds ended with a 2-4 loss, despite a multi-hit game out of Hartnell Community College’s Nick Gardoni.

The second game of the doubleheader saw a similar pitching performance out of Summit High grad Andrew Shaw, who pitched five innings and only allowed three runs. Shaw was ahead of hitters for most of the day with 15 batters seeing first-pitch strikes, leading to five strikeouts.

Summit jumped out to an early lead going up 1-0 in the first inning, and 2-0 by the end of the third thanks to RBIs from College of the Canyons’ Nick Henry and John Andrews out of Jefferson Community College. The Saints responded in the bottom of the fourth, putting a ding in Shaw’s line to the tune of three runs, enough for the lead and eventually the win, though they did add one insurance run in the bottom of the sixth, handing Summit their second 2-4 loss of the day.

GAME 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 FINAL

SUMMIT 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 2

GD 0 3 0 0 1 0 X 4

GAME 2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 FINAL

SUMMIT 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 2

GD 0 0 0 3 0 1 X 4

June 24 against Eagle Valley Eagles

In some games nothing goes by the book. Saturday’s first game against the Eagle Valley Eagles was one of those games. For proof, look no further than Summit center fielder Cody Minnis’ day. The young grad from Valencia High School put massive effort into the performance, even flipping over the fence in center in pursuit of an Eagle Valley homerun in the second inning.

Later in the game, he managed to score without anyone putting bat to ball. Minnis was hit by a pitch to get on first base, then managed to advance, on consecutive passed balls, to third. Finally, he trotted into home off of a called balk against the Eagle Valley pitcher. What’s stranger: That was not the only time in the game a run was scored without the assistance of a hit or walk. In the top of the second inning, the Eagles scored when a strikeout by Ben Wiley turned into a passed ball, allowing the batter to make it to first and a run to come in from third.

The strikeout-turned-run was fairly apropos for Wiley’s day. He has a big curveball that — when it’s working and hitting spots — can make batters look just plain foolish, including two who went down swinging in the first on filthy pitches on the outside corner. Unfortunately, these strikeouts came after Wiley had hit the first batter of the game, given up two bloop doubles and a homerun to go down by five runs to start things out. Shockingly, in the bottom half of the inning it was Eagle Valley’s coaches who drew the ire of the umpires, with both umps threatening to toss the coaches in the inning — the first inning. Things didn’t get prettier from there.

Trailing by six headed into the third inning, Wiley gave up a homerun before getting pulled after 2-1/3 innings of work. Zeb Pierson came on in relief, but he also struggled in a long third inning that saw a little bit of everything: an umpire hit the ground, Minnis topple over the center field fence, a hit batter, a walk and three painful homeruns put the Black Diamonds down 0-14 going into the fourth.

Summit got on the board in the bottom of the fourth after Nick Henry hit a shot into the right-center field gap that turned into a double, and Tyler Erne cleared the basepaths with a two-run homerun. The game ended after five innings due to the 10-run rule with Summit taking a 3-14 loss.

The second game of the doubleheader went the full seven innings, but ended with a 1-12 loss for the home team after Eagle Valley managed five runs in the top of the seventh. The Eagles had again jumped out to an early lead with two runs in the first and one in the second before Summit got on the board with a run in the bottom of the third. Unfortunately, that was all Summit’s bats could muster for the game, and Eagle added another three runs in the fourth, one in the fifth and sealed the victory with that five-run seventh inning.

After a rough week, Summit’s overall record now sits at 5-12.

GAME 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 FINAL

EV 5 1 8 0 0 X X 14

SUMMIT 0 0 0 2 1 X X 3

GAME 2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 FINAL

EV 2 1 0 3 1 0 5 12

SUMMIT 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1


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