Sebastian Kupis is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Mountain Ridge High School for AZPreps365.com 

In Mountain Ridge’s third home game of the season, the boys’ baseball team battled through Cibola’s rallies and waves of energy before ultimately creating some of their own to come out on top in an 8-6 victory, bringing them up to 4-1 on the season.

The Mountain Lions racked up nine hits and hopped out to an early lead thanks to a two run home run by junior outfielder Coby Neville. 

“It’s important to set the tone and be ready, I always want to stay on top of everything, be loud and cheer on our guys,” said Neville. 

The energy from one at-bat can only carry for so long, as the Cibola Raiders came back and responded immediately with three doubles, more men on and ultimately raised the score to 4-2. The Raiders dugout made a point to stay loud and proud during that stretch of seeing the pitches thrown to them in the zone.

“You have to have that pitch to show early in the count and finish guys late, you need a second pitch to pitch at this level with our schedule, it doesn’t matter who you are,” said head coach Eddie Bonine. 

Just like that, Matthew Licardi’s outing was over after the third inning and in came the 6-foot-4 sophomore Lucas Baughman to take over the mound until the game ended. He only gave up four hits the rest of the game, while tallying four strikeouts and a walk. 

“I was just trying to get ahead and throw strikes, do my part and help the team win,” said Baughman. 

The Mountain Lion offense fell stagnant in the third and fourth inning with five of six outs coming from strikeouts, but after taking the lead back in the fifth to make it 6-5 they never looked back and rode their momentum to a win.

It wasn’t clear early in the game that the Mountain Lions would be able to refocus and take this game back after taking a lot of first pitch strikes, not communicating as a defense on extra-base hits and being without their starting catcher, Joe Forbes, there was adversity to overcome.

Being a younger team, it took two contributing freshmen in Carter Neville and Andrew Hohmann to both get hits in the bottom of the fifth inning to swing the momentum their way. That inning ended with senior Brady Plecity bringing some energy of his own as he reached first safely with two RBIs and made the score 6-5.

Coaches after the game made it apparent to highlight the things the team as a whole needs to do to secure wins easier and make better decisions as a team. 

“I’ll leave you with this … If it is to be, it is up to me … All of you need to take some ownership of some of the stuff we’re doing. Stop looking for the next guy to make a play, the next guy to make a pitch, the next guy to come up with a good AB, it’s your responsibility. It’s up to you, each of you, not the next guy,” said coach Kevin Forbes.