High school baseball: Taylorsville rallies to beat Jordan, 6-5

TAYLORSVILLE — With just three games played this season, the Taylorsville baseball team is showing a knack for late-inning comeback wins.

For the second game in a row, the Warriors rallied from one run down in the bottom of the seventh inning to come away with a win. This time around, the victim was Jordan.

With the bases loaded, the Warriors' Jake Davison took a bases-on-balls to score Miguel Othon from third to give his team a 6-5 win over the Beetdiggers.

“Jordan isn’t the type of team that gives up wins that way, so we were lucky, but we’ll take it,” said Taylorsville coach Jake Brown. “This was a good win for us at home against a great team like Jordan, and I’m sure the game will be just as tough next time we play them.”

Before crossing the plate for the win, Othon provided a game-tying RBI double with one out — hitting a rocket down the third baseline. From there, Jordan decided to load the bases up — issuing two intentional walks before giving up the unintentional one taken by Davison.

“We were able to come from behind in the seventh to beat Juan Diego last week, and although these types of wins are fun, we need to do better to keep leads and take care of business early,” Brown said. “Fortunately we had guys step up in key situations, and that’s big for us. It‘s early in the year, and in two weeks this win won‘t mean much, but it‘s nice to see where we‘re at early on.”

Last season, Taylorsville came up just short of winning it all — falling 5-4 to American Fork in the 5A championship game. This year, the team hopes to make another deep run into the state playoffs with hopes of finishing the job.

“We lost some good players and some good leadership from that team, but we also returned some players who really stepped up in the playoffs for us last year,” Brown said. “Hopefully these guys can continue to grow and mature and realize that they can become a great team like the one we had last season.”

One of the key players returning for the Warriors is Jordan West, who provided a couple of RBI singles and four innings of solid pitching.

“Jordan is a great player who works hard and really wants to be good,” Brown said. “He was real good for us in the state tournament last year, and when you have a kid with the talent he has and combine it with his desire, that’s when you’re capable of great things.”

Jordan was led by Connor Ogden who, like West, contributed heavily from the mound and from the plate. Ogden was solid in relief duty and provided a two-run home run in the top of the sixth inning to give the Beetdiggers a 5-3 lead.

With the win, Taylorsville improves to 3-0 on the year and will next take on Riverton at home. Friday marked the first game of the year for Jordan, which will next take on Lehi at home.

Email: bgurney@desnews.com

Twitter: @BrandonCGurney