Bruins double up Union Mine 6-3

PONDEROSA'S Jacob Bist delivers to the plate in Monday's intra-county clash with Union Mine. Democrat photo by Pat Dollins

Bist flirts with no-hitter

SHINGLE SPRINGS — Ponderosa’s Jacob Bist carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning and Michael Green induced a game-ending double play as the Bruins upended Union Mine 6-3 Tuesday in nonleague baseball action.

Bist held the Diamondbacks hitless four batters into the final inning before JP Pedretti singled to right to  drive home Carlos Romero. Bist had earlier lost his shutout as Sean Tow scored on an error before a double steal saw Mike Davis cross the plate.

“I had no idea I had a no-hitter,” Bist said. “I felt strong for the first six innings — everything was working and the ‘D’ backed me up. But in the seventh I was tired and forcing it.”

Monday’s intra-county matchup was a makeup of last week’s postponement. Due to the unsafe condition of Union Mine’s field, the game was held at Ponderosa. The Bruins’ victory was the first win for Tyler Graham whose returned to coach his alma mater.

“We were pretty good when I was here and I take a lot of pride in the program,” said Graham who has the task of molding a young team in a rebuilding year at Ponderosa. “Baseball’s fallen off a bit here so my goal is to get us back to where we used to be.”

As Bist’s nephew Alex was deep in play behind the boarded backstop — not tall enough to see over — what he missed was his uncle’s five strikeouts and six solid innings; Jeff Martin’s diving catch of Davis’ drive to the gap to keep Bist’s no-hit bid intact and a tough play by third baseman Ryan Carey on a slow, spinning bouncer up the line.

Martin also supplied the power with a line drive home run to left in the sixth that made the score 4-0. The Bruins scored twice in the third, once in the fourth, once in the sixth and two in the seventh.

Union Mine starter Charles Simpson pitched well but an error aided Ponderosa’s two-run third that saw the Bruins resort to small-ball tactics to grab the lead.

“That’s who we are and a key to us winning games,” Graham said. “We’ve harped on that to the team: that a successful small game opens the game up for the other hits.”

The D’backs turned in a triple play to thwart Ponderosa in the first inning. With runners at the corner, Martin lined to Romero at third who stepped on the bag and fired to first to double up the Bruin runner.

For Ponderosa, Matthew McBride was 2-for-4 with a double and two  RBIs, Martin homered, Matt Poulin doubled and Cody Selders and Troy Zeier had RBIs.

“A couple of drops hurt us and they took advantage of their small ball execution,” Union Mine coach Brett Robinson said. “We have to be more aggressive but other than that we played OK.”

Jerry Heinzer

Jerry Heinzer is going on 12 years as an employee of the Mountain Democrat and is currently the Sports Editor. Contact Jerry at 530-344-5074 or jheinzer@mtdemocrat.net. Follow @ JHeinzerMtDemo on Twitter.

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