Nobody knows exactly the last time A Day in the West, the reigning Sedona Adult Softball power, was shut out.
But in just their second game in the league, presented by the Sedona Parks and Recreation department, the Balloonatics pulled it off Thursday, June 9.
“It’s only week two,” said Mauro Trahin Jr. “We’ve got to earn it.”
Head coach Larry Perry’s team used a mixture of great outfield defense and two third-inning runs to spark a doubleheader sweep and pull into a tie with Red Rocks Rotary, also 3-0 after a 9-3 win over the Mighty Ducks of L’Auberge de Sedona.
The two teams will face off for the league lead Thursday, June 16, at 8:45 p.m. on the Lower Field of Posse Grounds Park.
“Those young kids in the outfield were killer,” Trahin said of recent SRRHS graduates Justice Keane, Carlos Rodriguez and Garrison Skornik. “Impressive, and that’s fuel to their fire.”
Perry agreed that the young outfielders have speed, hustle and “crazy range,” playing from the light pole at Posse Grounds Park to the foul pole.
Their fathers sparked the offense against A Day in the West pitcher Jason Stewart, with Perry’s one-out RBI single scoring third baseman Bo Rodriguez.
Verde Valley Little League vice president Jeff Lynch — whose son, Scott, also plays for the Balloonatics — would drive in Perry to give the Balloonatics a 2-0 lead, and that would be all that Skornik’s father, Brad, would need on the mound for the first shutout of Pedro Ortega Sr.’s team in at least three years.
Skornik’s pitching has kept A Day in the West and the other two Balloonatics victims under wraps through the first two weeks of the season.
Rodriguez, who got on by stretching his double into a triple, also started the scoring against the Dirty Rats in the first inning of the nightcap.
Lynch and shortstop Mike Alvarez would both score in a four-run fourth and a five-run sixth to help the Balloonatics put the game away, 11-3.
“We’re going to test the arms, take that extra base,” said Perry, whose sons on the team include Justice and Kato Keane and Alvarez. “I kind of play the rover, wherever they’re power-hitting at.
“The thing about this team is, we’re a family.”
The Balloonatics’ first victim, the Sedona Red Rock News, couldn’t get over the hump of its first win against Enchantment Resort, losing its second doubleheader in two weeks after being run-ruled by Rokzoo Bucket List.
Shortstop Zeke Saxman belted the first-ever inside-the-park grand slam for the Paperboys in a fourth-inning rally from a 7-1 deficit to Enchantment. Still, despite three more comebacks that took the lead twice after sending the contest to extra innings, the Paperboys fell, 11-10, in the ninth.
For all Sedona Adult Softball league standings, results and upcoming games, please see the Wednesday, June 15, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.
