GREELEY — If Holy Family can duplicate the offense it had Friday at the Class 3A state baseball tournament, it’s going to be a tough team to beat.
After putting up 14 runs on 14 hits in their opening win over Lamar, the Tigers put up 13 runs on 13 hits against Metro League rival Kent Denver, beating the Sun Devils 13-3.
“The wind, if you hit it to left it just died, but if you went to right it was flying,” Holy Family’s Rob McCandlish said of his team’s potent offense. “So we just wanted to stay back on the ball, hit it to right and run as fast as we could.”
McCandlish hit a two-run, inside-the-park home run in the second inning, one of two homers in the game. In the two games he was 4-of-7 and he drove in four runs.
Kent Denver coach Bill Boatman knew what his team was getting in Holy Family since the two are in the same league and, in the one and only meeting of the year, the Tigers won 4-0.
“We knew that they were a good team, we faced them once during the regular season,” Boatman said. “They are a good hitting ball club and the top of the order is as tough as anyone in the state.”
The top three in the order — Evan Genders, McCandlish, Josh Tinnon — went a combined 6-for-9, five for extra bases; scored seven times and drove in five runs.
In the Tigers’ opening game against Lamar, Tinnon was a thorn in the side of the Savages.
On the hill, he allowed just two baserunners the entire game: a single in the third inning by Greg Fierro and a walk to Kelby Repp in the fourth. At the plate he was nearly perfect, going 3-for-4 with two RBIs and scoring three times.
In the first game of the day, Kent Denver scored three runs in the top of the seventh to get past Valley 6-5.
With the score tied 5-5 in the seventh and the bases loaded, Gus Lang sent a shot up the middle that had a chance to get through, but Valley’s second baseman Brady Deroo made a diving play to stop the ball. From his back, he flipped the ball in the air to get the runner out at second.
Kent Denver 010 11 — 3 8 2
Holy Family 333 13 — 13 13 0
Kent Denver — Kyle Matusoff cf 3-0-1-0, Jackson Cristee 3b 2-1-1-0, Spencer Dunlap lf 3-0-0-0, Gus Lang 1b 2-2-2-0, Thomas Macari rf 3-0-3-1, Dylan Finer p 2-0-0-1, Jason Lehigh 2b 3-0-1-1, Richard Yates c 1-0-0-0, Brendan Allen ss 0-0-0-0, Mark Monson ph 0-0-0-0. Totals 19-3-8-3.Holy Family — Evan Genders p 4-2-2-1, Rob McCandlish c 4-1-3-3, Jackson Wagner cr 0-2-0-0, Josh Tinnon 1b 2-2-1-2, Matt Lopez 2b 4-0-0-0, Thomas Lambert rf 4-2-3-2, Conor Meining dh 3-1-1-0, Matt Tinnon 3b 3-1-2-1, Will Roth cf 3-0-0-0, Jacbo Gonzales ss 2-2-1-1, Ryan Silva lf 0-0-0-0. Totals 29-13-13-10.E — KD Lang, Cristee. 2B — KD Lang HF McCandlish, Lambert (2). 3B — HF Genders (2). HR — J. Tinnon, one on in the first; McCandlish, one on in the second. SB — M. Tinnon (3), J. Tinnon (2), Gonzales. HBP — KD Lehigh (by Genders), Cristee (by Urban).Batteries — Matusoff, Richmeier (5) and Yates, Genders, Urban (5) and McCandlish. WP — Gender (5-0). LP — Matusoff (2-2). Balk — Matusoff. T — 1:40.
