Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — The Steamboat Springs High School baseball team snapped a 15-game losing streak on Tuesday night when they topped Battle Mountain in a 17-9 contest in Minturn.

The Sailors got off to a fast start, scoring six runs in the first inning. Starting pitcher Tyler Fosdick also set the tone on the mound by shutting out the Huskies in the first frame. He would pitch until the fourth inning, when reliever Cory Beck came in for the save.

"We started out swinging the bats and things went our way," Sailors coach Sean Hicks said. "It just goes to show you that when your bats are hot the game can be a lot of fun."

Ryan Marsden's two-run homer seemed to spark the Steamboat offense in the early part of the game. Infielder Jordan Gunderson went 4-for-6 at the plate with four RBI and teammate Preston Stanfill was 3-for-6 with one RBI. Steamboat had 19 hits in the game as a team the most this season.

The Huskies had beaten the Sailors 11-0 earlier in the month and Steamboat had come into Tuesday's game with a 0-15 mark.

"We thought because we beat this team before and they didn't have a win that we could step out on the field and beat them," Huskies skipper Colin Faherty said. "A team with two wins isn't going to step on the field and beat anybody. You've got to come out and play baseball and be sharp. We just weren't."

That much was apparent from the start. The Huskies committed six errors in the first two innings and nine in all as Steamboat raced out to an 8-0 lead. Junior Martinez and Nathan Simon got Battle Mountain its first two runs when they walked and were advanced around the bases by numerous wild pitches.

The Huskies got some two-out magic with RBI doubles from Jordan Bender and Ryan Schnell as well as a run scoring single from Fran Saucedo, who went 2-for-2.

Leading 8-5 after two innings, Steamboat scored three in the third and two in the fourth to extend its lead to 13-5. The Huskies got two in the fourth, courtesy of the first of two triples from shortstop Eugene Trujillo.

The Huskies were able to force the game to go the full seven innings, but could score just one run each in the sixth and seventh innings.

With the loss, the Huskies fell to 1-11 in league play and 2-16 overall. Steamboat is now 1-15 and 1-11 in league play.

The two teams are expected to meet next week in a pigtail game. The time and location of that game still has not been determined.

"I don't think we did anything special against these guys," Hicks said. "We faced this pitcher in the first game and I think our guys realized that he never should have beaten us then. They were not going to let that happen again."