Lucky No. 7? Bonneville downs Poky and Mountain Home, earns a state tournament berth for the 7th straight year

IDAHO FALLS – Bonneville is headed back to the state baseball tournament for the seventh consecutive year.

The Bees defeated Mountain Home 8-3 Saturday to win the best-of-3 play-in series.

Pocatello beat Mountain Home in Friday’s series opener, but the Bees handed the Thunder a 6-0 loss in the next game.

Pocatello and Mountain Home met up in Saturday’s loser-out game with the Tigers winning 6-3 to set up the afternoon championship game.

Mountain View scored a run in the first inning, but the rest of the game belonged to Bonneville, which took the lead on RBI singles by Taye Lords and Tyson Christensen.

Coltan Spagnuolo doubled to center to bring in two runs in the second and that proved enough cushion for Spagnuolo on the mound.

The senior gave up one run in 2.1 innings and Jackson Ropp finished it off with 3.2 innings of one-run relief.

This is the first season with a best-of-3 play-in round being added to the baseball postseason, but Bonneville coach Ryan Alexander said he likes the new format.

“I think there are 12 teams out there that deserve an opportunity to go compete and I like it,” he said. “For us, it didn’t change the way we prepare. We knew we were going to see two teams in Pocatello and Mountain Home that had earned the right to be here. It was a lot of fun.”

Bonneville enters the state tournament riding an eight-game winning streak. The Bees scored double-figure runs in six of those wins, but it was solid pitching that propelled them through the play-in series.

Three pitchers allowed just two earned runs Saturday against Mountain Home and shut out Pocatello on Friday with Lincoln Stuart tossing a two-hit shutout.

Alexander noted that the Bees have experience with four seniors and five juniors seeing action and the core group of players were part of the team’s run to the state tournament last season.

The Bonneville program always sets high expectations. Saturday’s postgame celebration was subdued, but the journey continues.

“This was the second-to-last step,” Alexander said of the postseason. “The toughest step is ahead.”

“Every year you have that hope that you can make that run,” Spagnuolo said. “That’s sort of the expectation that all the guys before have set and we hope to follow that.”

Greyson Martin, Carter Bowen and Jadon Cervantes also added RBIs for Bonneville.

The 5A state championship tournament is Thursday through Saturday at Wolfe Field in Caldwell. Top-seeded Bonneville (24-3) will play Skyview at 7 p.m. Twin Falls and Vallivue will open the double-elimination tournament at 4 p.m.

Pocatello’s season ends

Pocatello, which beat Mountain Home 6-3 on Friday, fell to the Tigers 6-3 on Saturday.

Kache Stucki finished 3 for 3 and Noah Newsom, Nate Rogers and Sawyer Myers each knocked in runs.

The Thunder finish their season 11-18.