O’Connor routs B.C. baseball two times
by Jason Stone

DVUSD – Sandra Day O’Connor’s baseball team picked a good time to get hot. As the playoffs loom in the headlights, the Eagles entered the week with six wins in their last eight games to get back into the thick of the playoff race in the 5A Northwest Region.

“We can’t lose any more games,” O’Connor coach Jeff Baumgartner said. “They’re all key games from here on out.”

O’Connor (10·13 overall, 3·4 region) nearly made it a clean sweep last week, having swept Boulder Creek in a pair of games. But the Eagles lost what Baumgartner called a “heartbreaker” against Deer Valley.

The Eagles appeared to have had no problem handling Boulder Creek in the teams’ first·ever varsity meetings. O’Connor pummeled the Jaguars 10·3 April 4, then almost duplicated the score in a 10·1 win three days later.

“We played pretty good in both of those,” Baumgartner said. “We put a lot of pressure on their team and we had some good pitching and some good defense.”

It was the game in between the two Boulder Creek meetings that Baumgartner’s team would like to have back.

The Jaguars took a 6·4 lead over Deer Valley in the sixth inning when Ben Kaufman hit a tie·breaking, two·run triple. But a freak play allowed the Skyhawks to tie it in the bottom of the inning when two runners scored as a pair of O’Connor outfielders collided on a fly ball that dropped in for a hit.

Deer Valley loaded the bases in the seventh inning and won it on a single with no outs.

“It was tough to lose,” Baumgartner said, “especially with the way Clark McCarthy threw.”

McCarthy went six innings, giving up only three earned runs.

In Boulder Creek’s other game last week, the Jaguars nipped Trevor Browne 1·0. O’Connor and Boulder Creek each entered the week with 3·4 region records, which is two games behind first·place Mountain Ridge.

Finishing high in the region is important because the region will not be staging a postseason tournament this year. Because state tournament seeding is based on power points, the final regular season games will be the only chance both teams have at making state.

O’Connor entered the week 10th in 5A·Division II power point rankings, while Boulder Creek (9·16 overall) sat at No. 20. The top 16 teams qualify.

The Eagles are scheduled to play two games against North Canyon this week, which could help O’Connor’s chances because North Canyon is ahead in the standings. Boulder Creek, meanwhile, has a pair of games against Deer Valley.