Jonah Weese is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Madison Highland Prep for AZPreps365.com

Fresh off a convincing home win against Highland Prep West, the Madison Highland Heat looked to gather some late-season momentum with another home victory. Their opponent, the Cowboys of Camp Verde, came to town riding a four-game skid, with each of their losses coming by at least nine runs.

Junior Rhett Clemens took the ball for the Heat, and found himself in hot water early. After a looking strikeout to the first batter, a throwing error started an early onslaught by the Cowboys. Three singles and two doubles later, the Heat found themselves down 4-0 before they even grabbed a bat.

The home first was mostly uneventful, save for a ground-rule double by the three hole hitting Clemens, boosting his team-leading .588 batting average. A batters box violation nixed an Aiden Zuber single and the Heat threat was extinguished. 

Clemens struck out the side in the top of the 2nd, and the Heat came back with a pair of runs in the bottom half. An infield single from Nate Garcia, a walk from Dylan Bethge and a seeing-eye single from Eric Lomeli loaded the bases. Raul Sotelo Baltazar put the ball in play and forced a fielder’s choice error that plated a run and kept the bases full. The Heat only managed one more run on a walk after having the bases loaded with no outs, striking out three times.

“(We) should’ve done more with the bases loaded. It’s frustrating.” Coach Bruce Fuller said of his team’s offensive struggles.

From there, it was a snowball of disastrous events for the Heat. In the top of the third, back-to-back doubles from the Cowboys plated a run, and another two singles directly after brought the deficit to 6-2. A ground ball that took a brutal bounce on shortstop Aiden Zuber scored another, and the bases were loaded after a walk to the next hitter.

“We’re all waiting for the ball to die and it just kept coming up and causing problems.” Zuber said.

The field itself was a major factor in the outcome of this game, especially in this third inning. After a looking strikeout, a routine flyball to right fielder Eric Lomeli was for naught when he tripped and tumbled over a significant bump in the right field grass, scoring all three baserunners and the batter after a throwing error. The inning came to an end after another two hits and another throwing error made it 13-2 Cowboys.

A member of the Cowboys also tripped over that same right field bump later in the game. 

“We gotta make those routine plays, (we) can’t keep giving teams free runs early.” Coach Fuller said of his team's defensive woes.

Even down 11 runs, the Heat dugout crackled with energy and excitement when Aiden Zuber dove headfirst into first base to lead off the home third. Nate Garcia would bring Zuber home with an automatic double, and Baltazar plated Garcia with an RBI single of his own to make it 13-4.

This would be the last of the positives on the night for the Heat. Anthony Kritikos entered to pitch in the fourth and by the end of the fifth, the Cowboys had opened up an 18-4 advantage that would hold through the end of the fifth inning. This ended the game via the mercy rule. 

The Heat drop to 4-10, and travel to Scottsdale Christian for their next game.