Put the ball in play and good things will happen. It doesn’t always work out that way in baseball games, but when Camp Verde hosted Chino Valley on Friday, April 16, putting the ball in play worked out spectacularly well for the Cowboys in a 3-2 win.
Camp Verde was up to bat in the bottom of the seventh inning, tailing 2-1, with runners on first and second, and was down to its final out. When senior Mason Rayburn hit a slow dribbler back to Cougars pitcher JP McNerney, the game appeared over — but appearances can be deceiving.
McNerny flipped the ball to Riley Roskoff, but his toss was errant. Roskoff not only had to come off the base, but the ball got away from him. That allowed freshman Frank Molina, who was running hard the whole way, to score from second, tying the game. Fellow freshman Chase Gillespie went from first to third on the error, as well. Cole Gillespie then came up and hit a ball by the Chino Valley third baseman to drive his brother in with the winning run.
“That was a small ball game,” Camp Verde coach Will Davis said. “The last break was probably going to win it. And obviously Cole’s winning hit, you can’t take that from anybody. He shortened up. The first swing he tried to hit it out. The second swing he shortened up, hit the ball in the gap and we ended up getting a win with it.”
The breaks were definitely in the Cowboys’ favor in the seventh inning. In the top half of the inning, with Camp Verde trying to keep the deficit at one run, the Cowboys staged a two-out rally when second baseman Jayden Smith delivered a single. Roskoff then hit a ball deep to left field that would have scored Smith easily, only the ball hopped over the wall for a ground rule double, leaving Smith at third.
After intentionally walking cleanup hitter Michael Velasco to load the bases, Camp Verde sophomore pitcher Treyton Battise struck out Collin Knight to strand the runners and keep the deficit at one run.
Battise picked up the win on the afternoon. He went four innings in relief, allowing only one run on two hits with two walks while striking out eight Cougars. He relieved Rayburn, who got himself into some jams over three innings, allowing three hits and four walks. But he generally worked his way out of those jams, striking out seven while surrendering only one run.
“Treyton came in and pitched the last four innings. You can’t complain about that,” Davis said. “Mason pitched well, especially coming off of some arm soreness. He went out and got three innings, which was all we needed out of him, we thought, and it worked out really well.”
Camp Verde only got five hits at the plate. Gillespie [Cole] led the way with two. His first hit was also his team’s first of the game and led to the Cowboys first run. After delivering a one-out single in the top of the fourth, Gillespie attempted to steal second. When the pitch he was running on was wild, he kept going and went another 90 feet to third. Battise then singled him in.
Next up for the Cowboys is a home game against Williams on Tuesday, April 20, at 3:45 p.m. Following that, Camp Verde will resume its 3A North Central schedule with a double-header at Page on Saturday, April 24, with games scheduled to start at 12 and 2 p.m. The Cowboys will then wrap up the regular season with a pair of games against Fountain Hills — a 5 p.m. home game on Tuesday, April 27, and a 1 p.m. road game on Friday, April 30.
The win over Chino Valley moved Camp Verde’s record to 7-4 overall, 5-4 in the 3A Conference and 3-3 in the 3A North Central Region. It was much needed, as it snapped a four-game losing streak, which came immediately on the heels of a six-game winning streak to start the season.
“We’re young and improving as it goes on,” Davis said. “We played teams that weren’t really good early in the year. As we’ve gotten into the good teams we’ve had to transition into a different type of baseball and I think we’re doing a good job at it.”
