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Ogden’s Ryder Rivera and baseball coach Doyle Holt celebrate after Rivera hit a three-run triple during a prep baseball game against Ben Lomond on Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner
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Ogden’s Will Minkevitch throws to first base during a high school baseball game against Ben Lomond on Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner
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Action during the Ben Lomond-Ogden prep baseball game Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner
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Ben Lomond’s Manuel Fraijo pitches during a high school baseball game at Ogden High on Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner
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Ogden’s Ellio Saenz throws a pitch during a prep baseball game Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at Lindquist Field.
Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner
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Ben Lomond’s Trenton Harris throws a pitch in a prep baseball game against Ogden on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at Lindquist Field.
Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner
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Ben Lomond’s Manuel Fraijo (20) looks at his glove after making a catch in a prep baseball game against Ogden on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at Lindquist Field.
Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner
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- Ogden’s Ryder Rivera and baseball coach Doyle Holt celebrate after Rivera hit a three-run triple during a prep baseball game against Ben Lomond on Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
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- Ogden’s Will Minkevitch throws to first base during a high school baseball game against Ben Lomond on Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
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- Action during the Ben Lomond-Ogden prep baseball game Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
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- Ben Lomond’s Manuel Fraijo pitches during a high school baseball game at Ogden High on Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
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- Ogden’s Ellio Saenz throws a pitch during a prep baseball game Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at Lindquist Field.
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- Ben Lomond’s Trenton Harris throws a pitch in a prep baseball game against Ogden on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at Lindquist Field.
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- Ben Lomond’s Manuel Fraijo (20) looks at his glove after making a catch in a prep baseball game against Ogden on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at Lindquist Field.
OGDEN — In 2021, a young Ogden High baseball team struggled and finished with an 0-18 record with only a handful of close games.
The Tigers are still young in 2022. Things are just much better compared to 2021.
With an 8-4 win over rival Ben Lomond on Wednesday, Ogden secured a series sweep over its city rival thanks to some timely, two-out hitting that put pressure on the Scots early.
Wednesday’s win was the cherry on top after the Tigers swept Tuesday’s doubleheader at Lindquist Field (3-2 and 12-1) to win the traveling trophy between the two baseball teams in what’s been dubbed the “Battle for Harrison Blvd.”
“We sweep Ben Lomond, it’s huge for our school. We’re working hard, we’re still young, I only have two seniors on the whole time, we’re getting there,” Ogden coach Doyle Holt said.
Instead of 0-18 through 18 games, the Tigers are 7-11 overall and 5-4 in Region 13 right now. One key to the improvement this season is Holt said Ogden had a team play in a summer league and a fall league.
The Tigers have won two of the three series they’ve played in Region 13, next on the schedule is the region’s last-place team, Layton Christian, and South Summit awaits in two weeks time.
Holt thinks Ogden will be able to hang with South Summit and winning that series isn’t totally out of the question.
In the other dugout, the result continued a frustrating start to the region season for Ben Lomond, which began the year with a lot of promise and expectations and has since accumulated an overall record of 2-13 and a region mark of 1-8.
“We’ve got a lot of youth mixed with some experience, and our youth is having to catch up quite a bit,” Ben Lomond coach JJ Miller said.
Last year, it was Ben Lomond doing the sweeping over Ogden. But Miller likes where the BL-Ogden baseball rivalry is at right now.
“This is the way it should be, back and forth each year, close games. I think baseball in Ogden’s only improving and that’s a benefit to both programs,” he said.
One hit made the difference early for Ogden. It came from Ryder Rivera with two outs, the bases loaded and a two-strike count in the bottom of the first inning after the Scots went ahead 1-0 in the top half from a Manuel Fraijo RBI single.
Rivera hit a triple to wall in deep left-center field, scoring all three runners and putting the Tigers ahead 4-1, breaking a 1-1 tie.
Rivera said getting swept by Grantsville last week lit a fire under Ogden and the Tigers were motivated to prove they were better than last week’s results showed.
Fraijo brought in another Scots run with a ground ball in the third inning and Trenton Harris drew a bases-loaded walk in the fourth to cut Ogden’s lead to 4-3.
Tigers starting pitcher Daemian Keesler went five innings and ended his afternoon with three strikeouts in the top of the fifth inning to preserve a 4-3 lead.
Keesler also got a strikeout with the bases loaded to end a threatening fourth inning in which BL scored to get within 4-3.
In the bottom of the fifth, Will Minkevitch drove in two runs on a two-out line drive to right field that wasn’t fielded properly by Ben Lomond’s right fielder. That made it 6-3.
Ogden’s insurance runs came in the sixth off the bat of Ellio Saenz, who hit a two-run single to make it 8-3 before getting tagged out on the way to second base.
“We hit the ball better, we scored 12 runs last night on 12 hits. I haven’t seen the box score yet today, but I think we had some timely hits, took some walks. This is what we preach: don’t walk people and don’t make errors,” Holt said.
In the top of the seventh, the Scots scored a run on a wild pitch to cut the deficit to 8-4. Rivera, who pitched the sixth and seventh innings, struck out the final batter to finish the win.
Earlier this season, Ogden was riding a 24-game losing streak dating back to the 2020 season with last year’s 0-18 record sandwiched in among that streak. Since breaking the losing streak in mid-March, the Tigers are 7-8.
They’re also No. 15 in the state RPI rankings with a chance at going higher with a few more wins this year. Ben Lomond is No. 20 in the RPI rankings and the Scots get first-place Grantsville next week for three games.