SPANISH FORK -- The scoreline is a little deceiving considering the final score, but the St. Joseph Jayhawks represented the Top of Utah well, dropping a 12-2 game to the Tabiona Tigers in the state 1-A quarterfinals Tuesday afternoon.
"This was a tough one to swallow because we had them on the ropes," St. Joseph coach Dane Atkin said. "It looked like they were starting to tighten up some, but one call changed the momentum of the game and things sort of fell apart after that."
The call in question came in the bottom of the fourth inning with the Tigers up 4-2. After a hit and a walk, a double down the line from Tabiona's Myles Potter was ruled fair, but appeared to be foul. The call allowed two runs to score, and after a Jayhawks error, another run crossed the plate and the rout was on.
"You never want to have an official decide the game, but that one call set us back on our heels and we never recovered," Atkin said. "It was disheartening to not show what we are capable of. We just needed a little more discipline today."
St. Joseph was the first team to get on the board as they pushed across two runs in the top of the first inning to grab a 2-0 lead. David Donlevy scored on a wild pitch and Jake Redden slid in safe on a passed ball.
From there, it was all Tabiona. Three different Tigers players had triples, including Bailey Hogan, Cameron VanTassell and Demont Nay, while Potter had the key hit in the fourth inning for Tabiona.
"I have to give a ton of credit to my assistant coaches -- Carl Wood and Steve Me--des," Atkin said. "I wasn't sure I was going to be able to come back with my work situation, but we got on the same page and carried this team. And with the players we have coming back, we should be a team to be reckoned with for a couple of years."
Reddden pitched well in the loss, striking out five, but was touched up in the later innings for the final runs.
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