After a week off, the Helper Merchants were back on the diamond Monday where they faced Pleasant Grove. Nathan Richens took the mound and threw a complete game for Helper. He gave up four runs on seven hits through seven innings.
“He did a good job for us after coming off the weeklong break. Nathan is always consistent on the mound for us, I always know what I am going to get from him,” said head coach Dakota Cisneros. “He’s not going to over power teams, but he throws a lot of strikes and keeps our defense involved. That is all I ask from our pitchers.”
Richens picked up the win as the Merchants were able to push eight runs across in the contest for the 8-4 victory.
In the bottom of the sixth, with the game still close, Helper had a 6-4 lead. Rylan Hart came to the plate and hit a two-run single to cash in some insurance runs for the Merchants. Hart went 2-4 while Anthony Jones also added a pair of RBIs in the match. Ty Anderson went 3-4 with a double and two runs scored.
“Overall, we played good baseball. Not as good as we’ve played previously this season, but I expected us to be rusty after having a week off,” continued Cisneros.
The Merchants have a double header in Springville on Wednesday and then will be back home on Thursday to take on Herriman at 6 p.m. Cisneros concluded, “There are still things we need to work on and we need to get back to playing Helper Merchant baseball. [But] our goal for the week is four wins, so this was a positive step towards that.”
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- Photos by Jeff Barrett
