The Dinos had their hands full on Wednesday afternoon when the state’s top pitcher took the mound. Gunnison Valley’s Janzen Keisel showed he was worth the hype, mowing down Dino batters. He had a total of 18 strikeouts through seven innings and was essentially untouchable, reaching 92 mph on the radar gun.
Luckily for the Dinos, Jordan Wright did his part on the mound and kept the game close. The pitchers’ approaches could not have been more different, however. While Keisel was blowing past batters with his fastball, Wright leaned heavily on off-speed pitches to get outs. Wright pitched into the fifth inning and struck out eight. With the bases loaded and just one out in the top of the fifth, Carbon elected to bring in sophomore Wyatt Falk, who came in and got two straight outs.
The first out was a fly ball to right, which scored the first run of the game, giving the Bulldogs a one-run advantage. With the same score entering the final inning, Gunnison was looking to add a couple of insurance runs. After two back-to-back walks to lead off the inning, Rylan Hart was called upon to keep the Dinos within striking distance.
Hart proved up to the task and struck out two straight batters and then induced an inning-ending groundout. Needing a run to extend the game, the Dinos finally got some movement on the base paths. With one out, Kade Dimick broke up the no-hitter with his single to center. Falk followed that up by putting the ball in play to the shortstop, who made a throwing error when he tossed the ball into left field. It appeared that the suicide squeeze play was on when Derick Robison came up.
The bunt attempt seemed to throw off Keisel on the mound, who walked Robison loading the bases. Keisel quickly regained control and struck out the next two batters to close off the contest. Gunnison held on to take the pitching duel 1-0.
The Dinos (9-5, 4-0) will close off the week at home against San Juan (2-9, 0-6) on Friday.
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- Photos by Jeff Barrett
