GREENWOOD VILLAGE — It’s another season and another sport, but it’s still Mullen versus Cherry Creek.
And that’s always big.
So Tuesday’s 8-3 victory by Cherry Creek on one of those sunny, chilly and windy afternoons in March in Colorado had additional meaning beyond it being a Class 5A Centennial League opener.
“It’s always good,” veteran Bruins coach Marc Johnson said. “We respect each other, we generally have good athletic programs, we go after it.”
Among multiple baseball scouts, the Bruins (5-0, 1-0) got to Mullen’s Arkansas signee Tyler Sample, a big hoss of a right-hander making his season debut who reached 93 mph, with a seven-run third inning and rode the fairly sharp pitching of junior Alex Blackford.
Sample brought his heat in striking out four through two innings, then couldn’t recover after a solo home run by No. 9 hitter John Shoutta and one of four Mullen errors that began the third. Cherry Creek came out swinging, and it paid off with a nine-hit performance.
The Bruins sent 13 hitters to the plate and were lifted by a ringing double by Alec Mielnicki among four run-scoring safeties. No. 8 hitter Conor McCabe included a two-run single.
“(Sample) is very good,” Johnson said. “The truth is, he’s a good arm, a little inexperienced, and he beat us in a big (summer) game last year. We were anxious to see him. . . . We kind of felt the team that won the freebie war would have a good shot at it.”
As for Blackford, he said he was “tired. I was just trying to throw strikes.”
Mullen (1-1, 0-1) battled, but never got it really going, stranded 10 runners and wasted a three-run homer by Cole Gilmore in the third.
“We were throwing Sample, who hasn’t pitched in this type of setting yet, and he’s our guy to go to,” Mustangs coach Vince Porreco said. “We made some mistakes and (the Bruins) rolled it. You have to eliminate the big innings and we didn’t do that.”
Cherry Creek added another run in the sixth on a single and two errors, the second of which came after Mullen thought it had executed a strikeout-throwout double play on an attempted steal of third. But after an argument, it was ruled the batter had just two strikes on him, and Mullen had to return to the field. It’s that type of occurrence in the long-standing, big-school rivalry.
Mullen 000 300 0 — 3 6 4
Cherry Creek 007 001 x — 8 9 1
Mullen — Schenk cf 4-0-0-0, James ss 2-0-0-0, Thornburg c 3-0-1-0, S. Smith 3b 4-1-1-0, Sandberg 1b 3-1-0-0, Gilmore lf 3-1-3-3, K. Smith 2b 4-0-1-0, McGuire rf 3-0-0-0, Phelan dh 2-0-0-0, Lahn dh 0-0-0-0, Sample p 0-0-0-0, Covelo p 0-0-0-0. Totals 28-3-6-3.
Cherry Creek — O’Connor 2b-ss 4-1-0-0, Satherlie 3b 4-0-0-0, Shantz ss 3-1-1-1, Sullivan rf 1-0-0-0, Mielnicki 1b 3-1-2-1, Olsson lf 3-2-3-1, Baus cf 3-1-0-1, English dh 2-1-1-0, McCabe rf-2b 3-0-1-2, Phillips cr 0-0-0-0, Shoutta c 2-1-1-1, Blackford p 0-0-0-0. Totals 28-8-9-6.
E — James 2, Satherlie, Covelo 2. DP — Mullen. LOB — Mullen 10, Cherry Creek 6. SB — James. 2B — Mielnicki, Smith. HR — Shoutta, solo in third; Gilmore, two on in fourth.
Batteries — Sample, Covelo (4) and Thornburg; Blackford and Shoutta. W — Blackford (2-0). L — Sample (0-1). Balk — Blackford. HBP — James (by Blackford). WP — Sample. T — 2:01.
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
