The Grand County High School baseball team remains alive in the state 2A tournament following a wild weekend during the opening rounds at Richfield last weekend.

In their first game on Saturday, May 2, the fifth-seeded Red Devils upset Region 14’s No. 2 seed, the South Summit Wildcats, by the score of 17-6. The game was a four-hour marathon marred by three rain delays. Starting pitcher Austin Brewer pitched the entire game and picked up the key win that allowed the Red Devils to advance.

“Austin did a solid job for us, even though he had to come out and get warmed up four times,” said GCHS head coach Jared Meador. “He stayed mentally in-tune the whole game.”

Brewer’s teammates backed up their pitcher with their bats, scoring at least one run in each of the first five innings until putting the game away with an eight-run rally in the fifth inning.

“We had an offensive explosion,” said Meador.

Shea Walker had four hits for Grand, including a home run and two doubles. Also hitting doubles for the Red Devils were Danny Flahie, Scott Shannon, and A.J. Olschewski. Jordan Martin added a triple.

Grand improved to 8-13 overall on the season with the win, setting up a second-round game with host team Richfield later that afternoon.

Against Richfield, the Red Devils jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning and were ahead 9-4 after scoring four runs in the fourth.

Brewer, who started the game on the mound, was later relieved by a succession of pitchers (Walker, Martin, Trevor Robertson, and freshman Parker Cook), each of whom tried with varying degrees of success to keep the Wildcats from scoring.

Richfield ended up capitalizing on two wild pitches and scoring six runs in the sixth inning to go ahead 15-11, their first lead of the game.

But the Red Devils weren’t done yet. Grand’s first five batters all got on base in the top of the seventh and final inning. At that point, the Red Devils had the bases loaded and had narrowed their deficit to two runs, 15-13. But Keogh, the next batter, struck out, and then Flahie got thrown out stealing home. Olschewski then grounded out to end the game with the score still 15-13 in favor of Richfield.

Grand compiled a total of 15 hits during the game – four more than the Wildcats did – including a home run and a double by Keogh, plus doubles by Flahie and Brewer.

“If you had told me at the beginning of the day that we’d score 30 runs today and still lose one of two games, I’d have never believed you,” Meador said. “We faced two quality pitchers, and hit both of them really well.”

The Red Devils dropped down into the 2A tournament’s losers’ bracket with the loss, but can still vie for the title if they win all of their remaining games. Grand will next face Parowan (Region 13’s second-place team, 15-6 overall) at 11 a.m. Thursday, May 7 at Taylorsville High School. The tournament will continue the following two days at Kearns High.