The Dragon Baseball team’s record took an upturn over the weekend as they went 3-1 at the Glenns Ferry tournament April 14 and 15.  After a slow and rocky start to the 2023 season, the team is beginning to fall into a rhythm they are happy to keep rolling with.

At the tournament, the Malad team faced Grangeville, Gooding, Wendell and Wells.  In their opening game against Grangeville, Dax Maroney pushed the Dragons over the top as he scored a final run as the two teams were tied at two in the bottom of the seventh inning.  Maroney led Malad at the plate, going to 2-4.  Brady Showell threw for the Dragons, going seven innings and allowing only two runs and a single hit while striking out 11 batters.

In their matchup against Gooding, it was Stetson Higley on the pitcher's mound.  The hurler didn’t allow a single run in Malad’s shutout win.  In seven innings, Higley threw 84 pitches where he struck out 10 of his opponents, allowing only two hits with zero errors and zero walks.  Defensively, Timmy Jensen led the team with putouts, snagging ten from behind the plate as catcher. 

The Dragons fell to Wendell in their third game of the tournament.  Malad had the lead over the Trojans until the third inning when Wendell had them by just one run.  At the top of the fifth inning, Malad climbed back on top to make it 5-3.  Unfortunately, Wendell answered back in the bottom of the fifth with six runs.  Malad was able to tag on one last run in the final inning to make the end score, 6-9.  Although the Dragons came up short, the two teams ended the game with nearly equally matched on stats with errors, strikes, at bats and hits.

The final match of the tournament was against Wells where the team was able to take the lead from the opening and clinch the victory in the sixth inning, 7-2.  Carter Blaisdell landed on base first for the Dragons on a single line drive to the left field.  He made his way to third base as teammates were walked on base and another hit to left field.  As Brycen Howe was up to bat, Blaisdell took a chance to score on the pitch after two balls and a strike, coming up with the first run on the scoreboard.  Jensen, coming up behind him, scored on the next at bat when Gabe Hooste hit a ground ball to second base.  The Blaisdell-Jensen pair scored again in the fourth inning before Sawyer Poulson and Josh Pickett added another two runs in the bottom of the fifth after Poulson hit a triple to right field.  In the sixth inning, Hooste put one more run on the scoreboard on a passed ball as Pickett was up to bat.

The Dragons look ahead to their first conference game of the season as they host Bear Lake Wednesday, April 19.  After waiting weeks to compete on their home field, they are anxious and ready to take on the Bears.