It’s B’s wild for Bonneville who begin 5A title game with a bang, finish with a bruise and walk away with a banner

CALDWELL — When two teams face each other three times in 24 hours, there are no surprises. By the third game, every player on both sides of the field is very familiar with the faces and accompanying skillsets on the other side. As are the coaches.

But the Bonneville Bees had one surprise left in them when they faced the Twin Falls in a winner-take-all 5A Baseball State Championship game, Saturday night at Wolfe Field.

Bonneville’s junior shortstop Carter Bowen surprised everyone in the stadium when he rode a first-pitch fastball out of the park to left-center field for a first-inning solo homer to open the scoring. It was the only ball all 5A state tournament to leave the yard that normally plays home to the College of Idaho Yotes.

It was a loud start to a game that came to more subdued, yet very energized end.

After a back-and-forth game that saw the lead change hands five times, the Bees went into the bottom of the seventh inning trailing, 6-4. And they proceeded to score three runs, the last of which being forced in when senior Coltan Spagnuolo was plunked by a pitch with the bases loaded.

It is often said in baseball that “a bruise for a base is a fair trade.” In Spagnuolo’s case, he traded a bruise for a 7-6 win and a state championship.

While Carter provided some unexpected thump in the first, much of what occurred over the ensuing six innings went exactly script.

Over the course of three head-to-head games played between Friday and Saturday night, the two teams combined to use 16 different pitchers. Bonneville sent six of those hurlers to the mound in two of the games. And both the Bruins and Bees had one of their pitchers appear in all three matchups — senior Greyson Martin for Bonneville and Slade Fisher for Twin Falls.

So, you could say that the hitters — at least Twin Falls’ hitters — were well aware of what arsenal the opposing pitcher featured.

Still, the third of the three games brought the stingiest of the pitching performances.

The Bees and Bruins combined for 20 runs when Twin Falls took the semifinal matchup, 11-9, Friday night. Then, after Bonneville beat Vallivue, 12-2, to force a rematch, the two offenses powered their way to a combined 22 runs Saturday afternoon, a game Bonneville won by a final score of 12-10. But there were just 13 runs scored in the third leg of the trilogy.

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Bonneville, who was a bit more liberal with the deployment of their pitching staff, used starter Spagnuolo for just 2-1/3 innings. He departed having served up four walks, two hits and two runs while striking out two, and left the mound with the game tied, 2-2.

None of the five Bees pitcher used in game three, in fact, recorded more than seven outs, with Martin and sophomore Crew Scott securing just one out between them, and surrendering three combined runs.

Things settled down a bit for the Bees when junior Tyson Christensen came on in relief of Martin in the sixth. Christensen allowed one of the two base runners he inherited to score. Aside from that though, he tossed two innings of hitless ball, setting the stage for the final lead-change.

The bottom of the seventh began exactly how Bonneville head coach Ryan Alexander would have hoped, and precisely the way Twin Falls head coach Tim Stadelmeir would have wanted to avoid.

The first three hitters the Bees sent to the plate received free passes — two by walk and the third on a hit-by-pitch.

Senior Gavin Hernandez was responsible for the first out of the frame, but it came in the most productive way possible. His grounder to short not only knocked in a run, it advanced the two trail runners, putting Bonneville’s tying run in scoring position with one out.

Because he has seen how effective Martin is with the bat, Stadelmeir chose to intentionally walk the Bonneville lead-off man and set up a potential game-ending double-play situation.

But Fisher, the Bruins’ hurler, could not get the ground ball his coach banked on. Instead, the senior right-handed hit Lincoln Stallings to force in the tying run. Then he hit Spagnuolo to push across the winning run — and the last run scored in the Idaho High School baseball season.

The Bees joined the Sugar-Salem Diggers, in 4A, and the Malad Dragons, in 3A, as District 5-6 state baseball champs. Eastern Idaho was held banner-less in softball.

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