High school baseball: San Juan and Kanab get victories to advance in 2A playoffs

“Just never give up, you know, just go into the end,” he said. “Keep grinding it out, put the ball in play, trust our defense. ...If we make the routine plays and limit it to about two to three errors a game, we put the ball in play and we throw a strike in the first two pitches, then we’re good to go.”

Kanab 2 Gunnison Valley 0

Kanab scored just two runs on five hits in its 2A playoff game against Gunnison Valley Thursday, but that was all the Cowboys needed.

Walker Baird threw a 1-hitter on the mound and knocked in a run at the plate with an RBI single to help will his team to a 2-0 victory.

While Kanab head coach Craig Brinkerhoff was happy overall with the win, he knows his team needs to get back to being who it is, which is producing at the plate as well as on the mound and out in the field.

“Walker did a great job on the mound for us today,” Brinkerhoff said. “He threw a lot of strikes, competed in his own course. That’s what we expected out of him today, and he’s done that all year, so nothing’s changed there.

“Hats off to him for throwing that game for us. On the hitting side, we got to clean some things up. We got to execute some bunts to and start hitting the ball more.”

Kanab scored its first run of the game in the third inning on a double down the line to make it a 1-0 ballgame. That remained the score until the bottom of the fifth inning, when Baird single to right field to double the lead.

“With Walker, I mean, he’s got nothing but confidence and he is a very resilient kid. Very resilient,” Brinkerhoff said. “He never gets rattled. He’s nothing but confidence, and he just wants to win. That’s what I love about him.”

Brinkerhoff believes that after getting the first playoff game out of the way under the big lights, his team will get back to its dominant offensive ways at the plate.

“I know they had a little bit of jitters being on the bigger field and they’re excited to be here, but I think we’re gonna get settled down and just to slow things down again,” said Brinkerhoff.

“I think going into tomorrow, I expect our guys to be a little more focused. Now they know what they can expect again, get back on it. I think tomorrow we’ll see a lot more of who we are again.”

In the 1-loss elimination bracket, No. 5 South Sevier shut out No. 9 North Sevier 5-0 and will face Gunnision Valley. In the other game in the elimination bracket, American Leadership Academy got past Parowan in a low scoring affair 1-0. As its reward, it will face Beaver next.