High school baseball: Wolves prevail in a wild one

OREM — After Timpanogos scored nine runs in the fifth inning Wednesday, to go with the 12 the Timberwolves scored over the previous four innings, a fan asked loudly "Do you think 21 is going to hold up?"

Sounds like a silly question. But in a baseball game with a score more like a football game, that lasted nearly four hours, which featured 35 hits, had nine different pitchers on the hill and saw each team bat through its order in one inning twice, it really wasn't a far-out inquiry — even though the T-Wolves did outlast Lone Peak 22-18 in the Region 4 opener for both teams.

"I won't say I've never been involved in a game like this before, but it's been a very long time at the least," said Timpanogos coach Kim Nelson, whose seen more than 25 years worth of high school baseball games.

The back-and-forth contest featured just about everything imaginable on a baseball diamond. Runs were scored on walks, hit batters, wild pitches, errors, double steals, singles, doubles, triples and a grand slam. The clutch hits were plentiful, with 25 of the 40 runs scoring with two outs.

There was even a fair ball, that the umpires knew landed in fair territory, that was ruled foul because one umpire inadvertently gave the foul signal — making the ball dead by rule. It was also a game that almost had to be continued into another day, with the final out coming about 10 minutes after sunset.

"This is one of those games where you can look back and find a lot of situations that could have turned out differently for both teams," Nelson said.

The difference in the game turned out to be Timpanogos' nine-run fifth, and the T-Wolves setting down the Knights 1-2-3 in both the fifth and seventh innings — the only half frames without a run posted.

The scoring onslaught started early when Lone Peak (7-1, 0-1) posted four two-out runs in the first - two of which came on Brian Nielson's two-run single. Timpanogos (8-1, 1-0) trumped that effort with six runs in the bottom half to go up 6-4.

A two-run single by Kade Andrus was part of Lone Peak's four-run second, putting the Knights back ahead 8-6. But the T-Wolves, thanks to Jeff Gassman's bases-clearing triple, scored four of their own in the bottom half to regain a 10-8 lead.

Three by Lone Peak in the third and one by Timpanogos knotted the score 11-11. After four innings the Knights edged ahead 13-12, but failed to get any farther head when Timpanogos' TJ Beveridge came in and retired them in order in the fifth.

But Timpanogos really opened the floodgates in the bottom half, scoring nine on nine hits to take a 21-13 lead. Luke Johnson, JD Ashman, Tanner Wolfe and Kellen McWhorter each had two-RBI hits in the inning.

The Knights, however, tried to push the game into the night with a five-run sixth — with all six runs scoring with two outs. Andrus' towering grand slam over the left-field fence did most of the damage in closing the gap to 21-18. Timpanogos' final run came in the sixth, and Jensen Nelson came on to retire Lone Peak in order in the seventh to end the marathon contest.

"When we scored that run in the sixth (to go ahead by four) we knew they could no longer beat us with a field goal in the seventh, it was going to take a touchdown," coach Nelson joked.

In Timpanogos' 22-hit attack, Jensen Nelson went 5-for-5 with three RBIs, McWhorter had three hits and three RBIs, and Johnson had two doubles with three RBIs. For Lone Peak, Andrus had three hits and six RBIs.

The two teams meet for a rematch today on Lone Peak's field at 4 p.m.