Baseball earns first round playoff home field with 12-8 win over Phoenix

MESA, AZ - In what amounted to a playoff to see which team would host the Region I, Division II playoff semi-finals, Mesa outlasted Phoenix in a wild game, 12-8, Saturday.

  The T-Birds will now host the best-of-three series against the Bears beginning Thursday at 3:00 p.m.

  MCC jumped to a fast, 6-0, lead in the first two innings and then had to hold off PC which cut what was once a 10-2 deficit to 10-8.

  Phoenix pitchers walked ten batters and the defense made three errors in just the first two innings, but the T-Birds capitalized on most of it.

  In the first, PC starter Ryan Gowens issued four walks and threw a wild pitch that scored a run while an error let in another.

  Then, in the second, the Bears made two outfield errors and dropped another fly ball that resulted in a force at second, but helped Mesa score two more with just one hit.

  The Bears began their comeback with a run in the third, but MCC countered immediately when James Anderson (So., Henderson, AZ/Coronado H.S.) singled and eventually scored on a base hit by Drew Lawrence (Fr., Anthem, AZ/Boulder Creek H.S.).

  Phoenix added another run in the fourth but Mesa quickly answered with three highlighted by RBI singles by Anderson and Casey Moses (So., North Las Vegas, Nev/Centennial H.S.).

  PC put two on the board in the sixth and another in the seventh to make it a close game again at 10-8.

  Jacob Boston (Fr., Chandler, AZ/Hamilton H.S.) gave MCC some breathing room with a triple that scored Jordan Zimmerman (So., Mesa, AZ/Red Mountain H.S.) and Brady Bate (Fr., Spanish Fork, Utah/Spanish Fork H.S.).

  Meanwhile, Garrett Bowman (So., Roy, Utah/Roy H.S.) was shutting down the Bears through three and a third innings of relief that earned him his fifth save of the year.

  Lawrence and Zimmerman each finished with three hits, while Boston, Anderson and Jordan Rose  (So., Tremonton, Utah/Bear River H.S.) had two each.