Rockies one game away

BONNER - The Mission Valley Rockies fell just one game short of the championship game in the Senior Babe Ruth State Tournament last weekend in Bonner. While it ended their season, head coach Alan Anderson has plenty to look forward to next year.

"I'm really proud of these guys," he said. "It's going to get even better."

With a young core of players, the Rockies finished 11-16 on the season and 11-8 in their conference. At the state tournament, they had a small roster, but managed to battle their way through games.

"It's especially hard when you have nine to 10 players in the tournament," Anderson said. "The kids were worn out."

The Rockies made their bid for the state championship on the backside of the bracket after losing to the Helena All-Stars 6-4 in their first game on Saturday. The Helena team was made up of a collection of all-star players made from four Senior Babe Ruth teams.

"They're a pretty tough team," Anderson said. "We had one inning where we allowed three runs and other than that, we played pretty well."

Nick Grogan went 2-for-3 in that game, with two runs scored in the contest. Jame Petersen also went 2-for-3.

"They made a couple of errors that allowed us to move around," Anderson said. "We just didn't play together for the full seven innings. We got six and a half."

They played more than seven innings in their second game of the tournament on Saturday. Facing a foe they were quite familiar with, the Clark Fork Cougars, the Rockies won 10-9 in an extra-innings thriller.

Eneas Inmee had a three-run homer in the game, as the Rockies took a commanding 8-4 lead in the fifth but let it slip away. With the game tied 9-9 in the sixth inning, Anderson brought in Petersen. He pitched three innings without allowing a hit.

"The rest of the team sees that," Anderson said. "They see him put the effort in."

The final out for Cougars was a hard liner hit at Petersen on the mound that he caught it to retire the side. In the bottom of the ninth, Grogan singled, stole second and was driven home for the winning run by Devin Kamarainen. Now one game from the championship, the Rockies faced the Helena All-Stars again Sunday morning. Despite leading 6-5 after five innings, they couldn't hold on and fell 13-8.

"We made some mistakes," Anderson said. "We ran out of energy, we ran out of everything."

The Rockies played 12 games, or almost half of their season's games in the last three weekends.

While it ended the season, the Rockies will have a lot of carry-over to next year. Their two key losses will be seniors, Kamarainen and Petersen, but they also return a good core of players.

"We had a lot of characters," Anderson said. "They had a lot of camaraderie and that's tough when you're bringing kids around from all around the area."

Even though the team went 1-2, Anderson said he was pleased with how his team fought.

"The guys stuck it out and really played well," Anderson said. "We went in there knowing we to had to play hard to get anything done."