Prep Baseball Report

Colorado Game of the Day: Silver Creek Defeats Mountain Range 7-3


Brad Cochi
Northern Colorado Senior Writer


LOVELAND – Silver Creek has spent the early portion of the 2019 season establishing themselves as the favorites in the 4A Northern League and the Raptors helped their cause on Saturday afternoon.

With a 7-3 win over Mountain View (4-5, 1-3) on the road at Greg Brock Field, the Raptors (10-2, 4-0) completed the season sweep of the conference opponent, remained unbeaten in league play and were the first to cross the double-digit win threshold. After committing five errors in the series’ first game on Thursday, the Raptors were also thrilled to get their 10th win in relatively clean fashion on Saturday.

In a game full of them, other encouraging events for the Raptors included their top hitter continuing to tear the cover off the ball and a recently-eligible transfer announcing his arrival with a loud home run.

“Last game, we had some defensive errors that kind of cost us early on,” Raptors head coach Brad Steward said. “Today, I thought we picked things up and cleaned up our defense. We were also a lot more steady and consistent offensively. I feel good about where we’re at and getting Cam (Hassert) back in the mix is going to help us a lot moving forward.

“He had a home run today and he’s a good athlete there at shortstop for us. Hopefully, he can provide some consistency at that position so we’re not bouncing back and forth with a different shortstop on days when Michael (Wegleitner) isn’t pitching.”

2020 Cameron Hassert, who batted .429 with 22 RBIs and nine extra-base hits for Niwot last spring, played in his first game for Silver Creek. The club’s new everyday shortstop hit a two-run homer in the top of the fifth inning to give the Raptors a 6-1 lead with 2019 Tanner Regan pitching well on the mound.

“It was really fun because it was my first varsity game back,” Hassert, who sat out the team’s first 11 games per the CHSAA transfer rules, said. “I’ve been practicing with all the guys and it was great to actually get out there with them. I was actually a little nervous, to be honest, but it’s a great, close group of guys that I was just happy I could help us get a win.”

Regan, whose fastball tops out around 81-82 miles per hour and boasts a 2.10 ERA in 15 2/3 innings as the Raptors’ No. 2 arm this spring. He came within an out of a complete game on Saturday before 2020 Davin Vialpondo entered and struck out the final Mountain Lions batter to finish the game.

Offensively, the day belonged to Raptors 2019 Spencer Rich. After going 3 for 3 against Mountain View, Rich is now slashing .523/542./1.045 with five doubles, six triples, two homers and 15 stolen bases. He has driven in 17 runs in 12 games.

For the Mountain Lions, it was a frustrating day in what has thus far been an up-and-down season.

“You can’t make mistakes against a team that’s playing the way they are right now and we made plenty,” Mountain View head coach Brian Smela said. “We made mistakes by letting opportunities pass us by and we made mistakes when they put balls in play. You’re not going to be successful against a solid team like that if that’s what you do. Today’s game was emblematic of what we’ve been. We have our good innings and our bad innings and right now, our bad innings are outweighing our good ones.”

2020 Anthony Bartelson started for Mountain View and pitched effectively when he was ahead in the count, which wasn’t often enough according to Smela. He has a 4.50 ERA through 18 2/3 innings on the mound.

Bartelson, 2019 Dylan Naughton (Garden City), 2019 Nate Vondy (Minnesota Morris), and unsigned 2019 Shane Shadowen combined for Mountain View’s four hits in the game.

Silver Creek will continue with Northern League action at Thompson Valley (5-5, 3-1) on Thursday. Mountain View will play a non-conference game against Poudre (5-4) from the 5A Front Range League.

Silver Creek 7, Mountain View 3
At Mountain View H.S.

Silver Creek (10-2, 4-0) 130 020 1 — 7 9 1
Mountain View (4-5, 1-3) 001 010 1 — 3 4 2
W — Regan. L — Bartelson.

Silver Creek hitting (ab-r-h-rbi) — Jackson 4-0-2-1, Wegleitner 3-0-0-1, S. Rich 3-2-3-1, Swenson 4-0-1-1, Regan 3-1-1-0, Hassert 4-1-1-2, A. Rich 2-1-0-0, Olinger 3-0-0-0, Brown 2-1-1-0, Belcher 0-1-0-0, Ordway 0-0-0-0, Suess 0-0-0-0, Vialpondo 0-0-0-0. Totals 28-7-9-6. 2B — Regan, S. Rich. 3B — S. Rich 2. HR — Hassert (1 on in 5th). SB —S. Rich.

Mountain View hitting (ab-r-h-rbi) — Baumann 3-1-0-0, Miller 2-1-0-0, Shadowen 4-0-1-0, Naughton 2-1-1-1, Vondy 2-0-1-1, Sanchez 3-0-0-0, Armstrong 3-0-0-0, Bartelson 3-0-1-0, Davis 3-0-0-0, Carda 0-0-0-0. Totals 25-3-4-2. 2B — Vondy.

Silver Creek pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so) — Regan 6.2-4-3-2-4-3, Vialpondo 0.1-0-0-0-0-1.

Mountain View pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so) — Bartelson 7-9-7-4-2-2.