Trojans strike out 10 times to lose the game

It came down to hitting for the Trojans baseball team. Something that Trojans skipper Brian Hayes has said his team has not been doing.

His team struck out 10 times against Sierra Vista in yesterday’s 10-0 loss and only had 3 hits to the Mountain Lions 11 (9-15 overall, 7-4 Sunset League.)

The loss puts Sierra Vista in a tie with Pahrump (20-9, 7-4) for fourth place. The team will make the playoffs, but they have to hit better to make state.

This means Pahrump needs to win all three games to stay ahead of the Mountain Lions, but if they lose to Faith Lutheran it means they fall to fourth place and lower seed in the playoffs forcing them to play the number one seed in the Sunrise League, Boulder City.

Sierra Vista has to play Clark, Western and Spring Valley in their final three. Spring Valley only beat Sierra Vista by one in their first game. (Western has forfeited all their games.)

According to the coach, the only bright spot on Wednesday’s game was that Dylan Ault finished 2 for 2 with a single and a triple. He also made some nice defensive plays in the outfield.

Ault continues to have a sizzling .405 batting average and has 30 hits on the year. Josh Mortensen continues to lead the team in hits with 34 and a .362 batting average and Carlos Rivera also continues to hit the ball with 32 hits and a .390 batting average.

Hayes said his team has been struggling in the past 5 games to just hit the ball.

“There are a few reasons for our struggles,” the coach said. “We played probably the top four teams in the entire 1-A Division (Faith Lutheran, Boulder City, Spring Valley, and Sierra Vista). All four of these teams are fundamentally sound all around and don’t give up many runs.”

He said the Trojans over the past five games have only 19 hits, 12 walks and 31 strike-outs and that is about 30 percent at the plate.

Defensively the coach believes his team to be sound. There were just a few mental mistakes on Wednesday.

“We had a big mental mistake that ended up costing us the game due to the ten-run mercy rule,” Hayes said. “At this point of the season, mental mistakes are killers, and from a coach’s standpoint, should not occur.”

The goal for the team is to make the state playoffs but to do that they will have to beat one of the four teams they have been having problems with.

“In order to beat a good team, we must pitch, play defense, and hit the baseball,” Hayes said. “Hopefully, we can get back on track over the last three games.”

Cancer game moved to next Tuesday.