Monday Rundown: Thunder hoping to out-run the angry bear

COMMENTARY – When walking along a cliff edge, the mantra is “Don’t look down.” When there is golf-ball sized hail coming down, someone might well say, “Don’t look up.” And if one is being chased by man-eating beast, certainly “Don’t look back,” would be good advice.

region-9-baseball-2For the Desert Hills Thunder, they may fit into that third category pretty well.

The Thunder baseball squad still has a perfect region record (8-0) and a two-game lead (in the loss column) over the Snow Canyon Warriors (7-2). But DH better keep running hard and looking ahead because the Warriors are playing like the aforementioned ravenous beast.

DH beat Dixie 8-2 Tuesday and then took its region bye Friday. Meanwhile, the Warriors continued to trample anything in their way. Snow Canyon beat Canyon View 10-0 Tuesday and then racked up 15 runs in a shutout of Hurricane. That’s an aggregate score of 50-0 in the last four games.

Desert Hills plays at Pine View Tuesday while Snow Canyon is at Cedar. Then the two teams square off at Desert Hills High School Friday night in what should be the game of the year.

The good news for the Thunder is that they are still in the driver’s seat because they lead by two games. So even if the red-hot Warriors beat them Friday, someone else would also have to beat the Thunder for Snow Canyon to pull into a tie for first.

On the flip side for DH, two wins this week clinches the region and a home playoff “pod” in May. And if you take a quick peek at the state tournament brackets, that would put Snow Canyon, Spanish Fork and perhaps Juan Diego all on the opposite side of the winners bracket from the Thunder.

Oh, and it’s also worth mentioning that 5-4 Dixie plays host to 3-5 Cedar Friday (after a Tuesday bye) and the Flyers can clinch a playoff spot with a win against the Redmen.

region-9-softballIn softball, the 16-0 Snow Canyon lady Warriors haven’t been blowing people out like their baseball classmates. But they have been winning, taking a 6-5 decision over Canyon View and a 7-1 extra-inning win over Hurricane.

SC is 9-0 in region with three games left. Canyon View and Pine View are both 5-3 and still have to play each other, so one of them could finish 9-3. So technically, SC has not clinched the Region 9 title outright. However, the Lady Warriors swept both those teams this season, so the top seed from the region does, in fact, belong to SC. That means Warriors fans can plan on a postseason home “pod” May 11 at Warriors Field. The state tournament is also down here in Dixie, with the games going from home sites on May 11 to the Fields at Little Valley May 16-18.

It looks like the Lady Falcons and the Lady Panthers will also make the playoffs, but the real battle will be for that fourth playoff spot, with Cedar (3-5), Hurricane (3-6) and Dixie (3-6) all having a shot. Cedar is at Dixie Friday.

region-9--boys-soccerBoys soccer is about a week ahead of the other two spring team sports, with the state tournament beginning May 2. That means this is the final week of the regular season and

we still have a tie for first place with Dixie and Desert Hills sporting identical 8-2-0 region records.

The defending-champion Flyers host fourth-place Cedar (5-5) Tuesday and travel to third-place Pine View Friday. As for the Thunder, they get Pine View at home Tuesday before finishing the regular season at fifth-place Snow Canyon.

As for Pine View, the Panthers hold their own fate in their hands with games against the two teams ahead of them in the standings. It should be quite a finish.

While those three teams are already in the playoffs, Cedar and Snow Canyon have the best shot at sliding in as the fourth playoff team with the Redmen ahead of the Warriors by two points.

region-9-track-and-fieldWe had a full report on this week’s track meet at Dixie High here.

 

 

Here’s a list of the first day of state for each spring sport:

Baseball – May 11
Softball – May 11
Girls golf – May 16
Boys soccer – May 2
Boys tennis – May 16
Track and field – May 17

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Twitter: @oldschoolag

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.

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