Playoff baseball left the demanding Lou Green unglued (his word) and chewing on his fingernails — and that was just the first round.
After his Park City High School baseball team went 1-1 over the first weekend of play in the 3A state tournament in Tooele, Green said his Miners must continue to ride their strengths — pitching and defense — to keep the dream of playing for a state championship alive.
The math is daunting, but as Green said, it’s simple: If Park City wants to raise a 3A state championship trophy, it must win seven straight games starting Thursday morning against Grantsville.
“Whatever happens, happens,” he said. “You’ve got to have a lot of luck and the Lord on your side.”
The Miners began their postseason play with an emotional 12-4 victory over Dixie, which, on paper, looks like a first-round rout. But it was actually the farthest thing from it. Park City’s Mark Trevino shut down the Flyers’ offense for five innings as the Miners built a 3-0 lead. But the junior began to lose command of his fastball, Green said, and Dixie made the Miners pay with four sixth-inning runs.
Suddenly, Park City’s backs were to the wall.
In stepped senior Nate Stanley in the top of the seventh inning. From then on, it was Stanley’s afternoon. The senior outfielder laced a single up the middle to score freshman catcher Chander Barkdull to tie the game at 4-4. Then, in the top of the eighth inning, Stanley lashed a two-out bases-loaded double, giving the Miners a 7-4 lead. From there, the hits were contagious as Brae Dilley, Conner Lagnese and Trevino continued the extra-innings onslaught. In all, the Miners scored eight runs with two outs in the top of the eighth inning to secure the first-round victory over the Flyers.
“Holy cow,” Green said of Stanley. “For me, he’s the surprise player of the year. Great attitude, great work ethic, leader during practice, and he’s a tough, tough guy to get out.
“Every attribute you look for in good hitters, he has it. He was our sparkplug. He single-handedly put Dixie away.”
Green said he knew his team wouldn’t go down without a fight. Instead they responded with nine runs in the last two innings of the game. The last time Park City scored nine runs in a game was April 17 against Uintah.
“This is a resilient group,” he said. “They never, ever, ever cease to amaze me good and bad. I was sure we had another run in us. I just didn’t know it was going to be an eight-runs-with-two-outs run.”
The Miners had a 20-minute turnaround to prepare for Carbon, a talented No. 4 seed which defeated host and No. 1 seed Stansbury in the first round Saturday. Through three innings the Dinos were deadlocked with Park City, but Lagnese, the Miners’ ace lefty, ran into trouble with command of his fastball.
Carbon jumped on the mistakes, the Park City bats couldn’t muster another rally it had against Dixie and the Dinos beat the Miners, 6-2.
Green said it’s been a difficult few weeks for Lagnese, Park City’s clean-up hitter and lefty starter, after giving up a walk-off three-run home run at Uintah on April 17. But he said the Miners will look nowhere but to Lagnese when it comes to making a potential memorable run this week.
“You’ve got to kiss the girl who took you to the dance,” Green said. “We know if we’re going to make a run at the state championship, (Lagnese) is going to be the biggest part of it, hitting in that No. 4 hole and throwing outs for us.”
Park City and Grantsville are scheduled to tangle Thursday at 11 a.m. in Taylorsville. If the Miners move on past the Cowboys, they’ll draw the winner of a Region 10 showdown between Wasatch and Juan Diego Thursday at 4:30 p.m.
Facing the prospect of winning seven games in three days isn’t all that overwhelming to Green, a former minor league pitcher, who said this year’s team has the pitching depth to make something special happen — if they can play defense and have timely hitting, of course. That means all hands will be on deck as Gabe Cohen, Cole Tan, Dilley and Stanley could be called upon along with Trevino and Lagnese.
“If anybody in the state has enough arms to get through the loser’s bracket it’s us,” he said. “We have five or six guys who can roll outs.
“I’m excited to go to battle with these guys. I’d rather have these 20 guys than any other 20 guys in the state this weekend.”