Devils fall to Indians in nonconference game

GYPSUM — As The Shirelles taught us, “Mama said there’d be days like this.”

Eagle Valley baseball can attest to that after Montrose scored 17 runs in the third inning as the Indians cruised to a 21-2 nonconference win on Wednesday over the Devils.

The glass-is-half-full approach is that all the garbage is out of the way before Saturday’s crucial twin bill against Palisade. And furthermore, how often can you say that you witnessed a 17-run inning?

Time to laugh it off and reset things for the Bulldogs on Saturday.

“You have to shake it off,” Devils manager Jesse Meryhew said. “We had one bad inning. But it was very bad.”

Montrose sent 21 batters to the plate in that frame. The what if of the inning came with the leadoff hitter of that marathon. Wyatt Edeker struck out to begin the inning, but took first on wild pitch.

Devils starter Garrett Martin had been effectively wild to that point. That was his fifth punch out in 2-plus innings of work. In fairness to Martin and those who followed him on the mound, Eagle Valley pitching didn’t get much help from the defense.

“It’s a team game and we have to work as a team. Fundamentals in this game are key. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball,” Meryhew said, channeling his inner Joe Riggins from “Bull Durham.” We just have to be more fundamentally sound.”

The to-do list includes cleaning up five walks, three hit-batsmen and a bunch of errors.

Strikes are everything this year. You can’t walk guys. You can’t hit guys,” Meryhew said.

Along those lines, the skipper pulled Martin, Joe Sanchez and Anthony Valdez to limit their pitch count to keep everyone eligible for Palisade.

Montrose scored two runs in the top of the first, and the Devils answered nicely. With the visiting Indians doing their share of booting the ball, Kyle Williams and Martin both got on base. Tyler Greear brought Williams home with an RBI single and Martin scored on a wild pitch.

While Eagle Valley fell to 5-4 overall, the Devils are 4-0 in the 4A Slope, and the beauty of baseball is that every day is a new one.

Devils lax wins

FARMER’S KORNER — Life’s always better after a win.

And is simply awesome when it’s a comeback win. Eagle Valley boys lacrosse erased a 6-2 halftime deficit to surge past Summit County, 9-7, on Wednesday.

“We talked about tightening the defense and we did,” Devils coach Boomer Devlin said. “The defense and (goalie) Spencer Burwell played Devils defense. That puts the ball back in the offensive end where we’re tough to stop.”

Hared Salaz finished with a hat trick, as did Finn Blomquist. Wyatt Alt had a hat trick of assists. Kenny Rindy, Hayden Glitchell and Ben Zuckerman also scored.

Eagle Valley (3-4) hosts Durango on Saturday up at the Gypsum Sports Complex at 11 a.m.

Sports Editor Chris Freud can be reached at 970-748-2934, cfreud@vaildaily.com and @cfreud.