High school baseball: American Fork fends off Fremont in a shaky win

Two things were evident in Tuesday’s game between American Fork and Fremont. The Cavemen certainly have the talent to be a significant 6A title threat, but it also has a lot of kinks to work out before that point.

While it wasn’t as pretty as American Fork would’ve liked, the Cavemen showed resiliency in a 6-3 win over the Silverwolves. It was only American Fork’s third game against a Utah opponent as the Cavemen previously played Nevada’s Desert Oasis, Abor View and Coronado.

American Fork had as good of an opening to Tuesday’s game as you could reasonably hope for. In the Cavemen’s first three at-bats CJ Mascaro and Bode Gaggero each hit doubles and Cooper Jones hit a home run for a 3-0 lead. American Fork was in a great position to put the game away early, but Fremont hung around.

After his first inning struggles, Silverwolves pitcher Jace Hadley started to make life difficult for American Fork and kept hitters off base. Hadley had nine strikeouts as Fremont kept American Fork scoreless for five straight innings.

“Fremont’s pitcher did a good job just keeping us off balance,” said American Fork head coach Jarod Ingersoll. “We didn’t adjust very well at all. Fremont is a good quality club, they’re well coached and their pitcher made an adjustment. We got away from who we are and that was ultimately why we put a lot of zeros up there.”

While the Silverwolves did their job defensively, they still struggled to execute at the plate. Fremont had particularly good chances at running up the score in the second and third innings. The Silverwolves had runners on first and third in the second and loaded bases in the third.

However, both times Fremont was kept from scoring thanks to smart fielding and strong pitching from American Fork’s Jamon Yates.

“We bent a little bit but we didn’t break,” Ingersoll said. “We limited some of the mistakes and played pretty good for the most part. On defense there was a couple of mistakes here and there, but I thought the pitchers did a pretty good job of throwing strikes. We got to limit those freebies and we got to play just a little bit better defense.”

The score stayed stagnant at 3-0 until the bottom of the sixth when Fremont finally got a runner in to bring it to 3-1. With the game slightly more tightened, it was the trio of Mascaro, Gaggero and Jones who stepped up once again. Mascaro started it off with a triple, Gaggero got on base with a hit by pitch and Jones hit a single to jump the score up to 4-1.

“We have the most success when guys are up there passing the baton,” Jones said. “I mean our whole lineup are amazing hitters so it’s all about passing the baton and we have the most success when guys are getting on base and letting the next guys in the lineup get the job done.”

That’s exactly what American Fork did as it further ran up the score to a 6-1 lead. However, Fremont quickly made the game dangerous in its last inning. It started strong with its first three runners all getting on base and loading the bases without an out. The Cavemen had a chance at a double play, but an error allowed the loaded bases.

While the Cavemen still held a five-run lead they knew this was a dangerous situation. American Fork stayed cool, didn’t allow a run without an out to accompany it and it held off Fremont with a 6-3 win.

“They’re good hitters,” said Ingersoll. “They’re battle tested. They’ve been in our program for three or four years and they have a good feel for what they’re trying to do up there and how to be successful.”