Grays split doubleheader with dangerous Hornets

POCATELLO — If the Gate City Grays are to make another push for the Northern Utah League championship, their pitching staff will be the key.

Manager Rhys Pope confirmed to EastIdahoSports.com on Saturday that both Slayder Watterson and Jayson Jones will miss the entire 2025 season due to injury, meaning the Grays will be without their two best pitchers from a year ago.

Sporting a staff that is missing its top two arms, Pope and the Grays will be tested all season. And their latest test came in the form of a Saturday doubleheader against the Hyrum Hornets, who brought with them the league’s second-best record.

Behind the pitching trio of Trem Tolman, Kyler Spracklen and Brody Burch, the Grays (5-11) answered part one of that test with a 2-0 win.

The starter, Tolman held Hyrum (10-5) scoreless on just two hits through the first 4 innings. Spracklen tossed a hitless fifth setting up Burch, who allowed one hit over the final two innings to earn the win.

Mario Landeros and Brayden Pieper each knocked in runs in the sixth inning for the entirety of the scoring in game one.

Pieper then got the call to start game two, and limited the Hornets to four runs in his 5 innings of work.

The Grays’ shorthanded pitching staff held one of the NUL’s top offenses scoreless for seven innings. But the seal was broken in the second inning of the second game, when centerfielder Ty Jones launched a solo homer over the wall in left field.

Offensively, Gate City scattered 11 base runners — eight hits and three walks — in game two, but could not come up with the big hit.

Burch, the winning pitcher in the first game, picked up two of those hits, knocking in one run and stealing a base, as the leadoff hitter and centerfielder in game two. First baseman Hudson John gave the Grays a 2-1 lead in the third on a sacrifice fly, then doubled in another run to pull within one, 4-3, in the fifth.

But the offense dried up after that.

Still, Pope said he sees the split as a positive for his squad, which is still searching for footing as the season moves into its second month. In fact, he said, had he been offered a split with the league’s “No. 2 team” on Monday, he “would have taken that all day.”

“We’re taking steps forward, and that’s exactly what we wanted,” Pope said after the second game. “I thought, tonight, we took steps forward.”

Gate City’s next test will be on Tuesday, when they travel to Smithfield to take on a Blue Sox team carrying the league’s best record (12-1).