Last week, the baseball team rose to No. 2 in the Conference 4A rankings and No. 14 in Arizona, according to Maxpreps.com.
After participating in the Wolves Baseball Classic Tournament on Thursday and Friday, April 6 and 7, the Marauders’ record went to 17-2 overall and a 6-0 mark in the Grand Canyon Region. At the Wolves Classic, the team went 2-1 with 5-1 and 5-2 wins over a pair of 3A teams: No. 1 ranked Payson High School and No. 10 Show Low High School, respectively. Their loss came at the hands of Cathedral Preparatory School [Erie, Pa.] by a 4-0 score.
Junior Tyler Kelly owns the ninth best batting average in 4A at .477, and five Marauders are in the top 30: junior Jordan Huey, sophomore Justin Tanner, junior Andrew Kulis and senior Gus Henley.
Kelly is tied for fourth in home runs with four, is fourth in slugging at .909 and eighth in on base percentage at .583. Henley is fourth in RBI with 30.
They resumed region play on Tuesday, April 11 at Flagstaff High School, losing 5-3, their first region loss of the season. Mingus was down 5-1 in the seventh inning, but could not complete the comeback.
It will look for revenge when the Eagles come to Cottonwood on Thursday, April 13, with the first pitch scheduled for 3:45 p.m.
Tennis
Boys and girls tennis played two Division II Section II matches; the girls went 2-0 and the boys 0-2.
They first took on Deer Valley High School on Tuesday, April 4, before facing off with Bradshaw Mountain High School two days later. Against Deer Valley, the girls won 6-3 on their home court before beating Bradshaw Mountain 8-1 on the road. The boys lost at Deer Valley 7-2 before succumbing to the visiting Bears, No. 9 in Division II, 9-0.
Despite the defeats, boys coach Larry Lineberry recognized that both opponents were strong in comparison to his young, inexperienced squad. In order to find positives from the matches, he asked his players to hone their skills in certain parts of the game in which they had been working on in practice.
“If they do better than the match before, then it’s a good result,” Lineberry said.
