Grays pound Peaches, sweep doubleheader in merciless fashion

POCATELLO — The Gate City Grays put an emphatic end to their three-game losing slide Friday night, sweeping a doubleheader against the Brigham Peaches. Between the two games, Gate City outscored the Peaches 30-2, ending both games by mercy rule.

The Grays (4-3) didn’t need much offense to back dominant outings from Brayden Pieper and Stetson Higley, but they got it nonetheless. Gate City scored in every inning, taking the Peaches down 18-0 in the first game and 12-2 in the second.

After the conclusion of the second game, manager Rhys Pope held his team in right field for a lengthy discussion, despite all the positives. He said the message was simple: he wanted the team to know he was proud of the way they played after losing three close games in a row.

“We were on a three-game skid coming into this. We’ve been talking since Tuesday about, ‘Hey, we need to right the ship.’ We’re not hitting the panic button, but we want to make sure that we’re correcting the things that we need to work on,” Pope told EastIdahoSports.com.

Looking to right the ship, Pope gave the ball to Pieper, the team’s longest-tenured player, spending his sixth summer in a Grays jersey.

Pieper did everything his team could have asked from him, tossing a 5-inning complete-game one-hit shutout. He walked just one and struck out three.

Pope spoke highly of the veteran, saying Pieper knows what is expected of the players, from the coaching staff and owners, and does a great job of relaying that to the players. He is also very dependable both in the box and on the bump, where he shone in game one Friday.

“He’s a guy that’s going to dominate the zone,” Pope said of Pieper. “He’s a guy who’s going to attack you, be relentless — he’s a bullpen-saver. … It’s always nice to have Pipe on the mound.”

While the offense came from throughout the lineup, no player did more damage than Josh Myers, who went 2-for-4 with two runs scored and four RBIs.

Higley started game two and did his best to match the vet, serving up a mammoth solo shot in the first before settling in to toss his own complete game.

Having both starters go the distance, Pope said, sets the Grays up nicely for the upcoming week, when they will face the Logan Royals on the road on Tuesday and host the Hyrum Hornets for a doubleheader next Friday.

After getting 18 runs of support in game one, Pieper offered the support for his rotation-mate in game two, hammering a two-run triple in the bottom of the first to immediately erase the solo homer in the top of the inning.

Gate City scored three runs in the first, then three more in the second. The Grays added two in the third, then three more in the fourth, all of which coming on a three-run homer from Boston Ross.

After surrendering an unearned run in the top of the fifth, the Grays were forced to hit in the bottom half, scoring the game-ending run before an out was recorded.

Center fielder Kaulana Alvarico, a Highland High School alum and first-year Gray, collected three hits, including a pair of doubles, from his lead-off spot. He said after the game that the Grays were out to “flip things around” on the losing streak.

“We know that we’re a couple innings away from being a dangerous team, and getting back up in the leaderboard in the conference and bringing back the conference title,” he said.

Pope is hopeful this dominant performance was enough to get his squad back to playing with confidence:

“Just getting that confidence back a little bit, and proving to ourselves that, yeah, we are a good baseball team, now let’s get on a roll here.”