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MVHS Baseball Strides Forward

	Jonathan Oglesby Moapa Valley Progress Submitted Mar. 19, 2008 With a 4-1 start behind them, the MVHS Baseball found themselves striding into the Donnelley Sports Wood Bat Classic riding high on their early-season success. The Pirates, who are ranked first in the state by Maxpreps.com, have been able to come out of the box early in their first season under new Head Coach Jim Vallet and continue working for their		Matt Newton pitches against the Pahranagat Valley Panthers at last Saturday’s game. The game was part of the annual Wood Bat Classic Tournament held last weekend at MVHS.
	ultimate goal; bringing a Nevada State Title back to Moapa Valley. Moapa Valley played in a Thursday night doubleheader last week at Pirate Field to open the Wood Bat Classic which is in it’s fourth year under the sponsorship of Donnelley Sports of Twin Falls, Idaho. Moapa Valley faced off against Wells in the opener and promptly used their pitching strength to set up the offense. The Pirates were led by Dallin Seely who threw 12 strikeouts to give a 9-0 shutout victory to the Pirates. Moapa Valley was then able to hold off White Pine 4-0 to close the first night of the tournament with Moapa Valley leading in the race for the title. The Pirates faced off against the Battle Mountain Longhorns in the primetime Friday matchup as Moapa Valley continued to show their confidence in their pitching depth. The Pirates started freshman Kevin Cardinal on the mound to start the game and Cardinal had two strikeouts on the mound in the top of the first. Unfortunately, he also gave up two runs to give Battle Mountain a 2-0 lead to start the game. Sensing his team needed an offensive spark to get going, Matt Newton swung hard on a 2-2 ball and sent it over the fences for a Pirate leadoff home run. After a Dallin Seely double and a Travis Ozaki single, the Pirates scored two more runs to take a 3-2 lead into the second inning. There was little action in the next two innings as Kevin Cardinal used his pitching prowess to throw three more strikeouts. Cardinal was pulled after the top of the third inning and was replaced by veteran reliever Tyler Williams who also was able to throw two more strikeouts to lead the Pirates into the bottom of the fourth nursing a 3-2 lead. The Pirates, sensing the urgency to score some more runs, did just that and great batting brought Kevin Cardinal, Ken Matheson, Jake Pearce, and Brad Weiss around home plate to give Moapa Valley a 7-2 lead after the fourth inning. The Pirates would score four more runs in the bottom of the fifth to win the game 11-3. Moapa Valley again played in the primetime Saturday matchup as the Pirates faced off against another blue and gold team, the Pahranagat Valley Panthers. This game proved to be much more difficult than the Battle Mountain game as the Panthers came out prepared to play to win. Matt Newton got the start for the Pirates on the mound and used great pitch location and good defense to lead Moapa Valley into the bottom of the second inning with a 0-0 tie. The Pirates used the offensive batting of Matt Vallet to get going as his substitute runner Anthony Conti made it across home plate to score for Moapa to give them a score of 1-0 at the end of the second inning. After Matt Newton threw two strikeouts, Head Coach Jim Vallet made the decision to work his rotation for experience and put in Jake Pearce who threw four strikeouts for Moapa Valley over the next two innings. Vallet would also change pitchere again in the top of the fifth by exchanging Pearce for Brad Weiss. Weiss would give up a run however to tie the score at 1-1. Even after giving up a run, Brad Weiss would make up for it in the bottom of the fifth inning as he sent off a single that would give him two RBIs. Weiss would score another run for Moapa Valley off of a Travis Ozaki RBI to put the Pirates up 4-1. Moapa Valley would carry this score into the top of the 7th inning where Weiss would throw three strikeouts to end the game and the tournament with a 4-1 Pirate victory. Based off of the tiebreakers, the Pirates repeated as the champions of the Wood Bat Classic and now will look to continue their pre-season preparation as they play Cedar City and Vo-Tech in the coming weeks before opening Southern 3A play against Pahrump Valley on April 1st in Pahrump.