Grant slam: Mealey eats as Minutemen take Game 1, 11-1

Mealey went 3 for 4 with six RBIs, scoring three times, while Joey Aman had three hits and scored four times.

“It’s the same mentality…barrels, barrels, barrels in practice,” Lewis County coach Tyler Wood said. “They’re taking it out to the field. Grant’s been doing it all year long. He’s got it rolling.”

“It shows everything I was doing in the cage was paying off,” Mealey said. “My hands were good. Everything was working.”

Liam Jeffries added three hits and two runs out of the 9-spot.

“They’re a well-coached team and a good-hitting team,” RCB coach Andrew Smith said. “One through five or one through six, they’re very dangerous. We found that out again tonight.”

Carder pitched to contact well, getting 10 ground balls to go with four flyouts and four strikeouts and getting through the abbreviated game on 88 pitches as compared to 164 in five-plus frames for RCB arms.

“Every time he pitches, we know we’re going to have a good game,” Mealey said. “He always shuts it down for us.”

“We’ve got our whole bullpen left,” Wood said. “Carder and Trenton Hunt have been really dealing for us. We’ve got plenty of options.”

Game 2 is at Frank Loria Field on Tuesday at 6 p.m., while Game 3, if necessary, would be back at Lewis County (14-9).

“We love being at home and being on the turf,” Smith said. “We’ve just got to bounce back, rebound and flush tonight and get the confidence and energy back at Loria.”

RCB (13-17) threatened in the first as Nick George singled and moved to third on an errant pickoff throw, but a groundout ended the inning.

A great catch by Bryce Byrd in center robbed Lewis leadoff man Carder, but singles by Joey Aman and Mealey and a wild pitch put two runners in scoring position.

A walk to Zach James loaded the bases, then another free pass to Luke Davisson forced in a run.

Ryder Aman then followed with an RBI single to left, giving the Minutemen the 2-0 edge.

RCB starter Rylan Rock, though, got a key strikeout to leave the bases loaded.

After Carder retired the Eagles in order in the top of the second, the Minutemen bats went back to work as Jeffries, Carder and Joey Aman singled to load the bases for Mealey, who drove a 2-0 pitch over the left-field fence for a grand slam.

“I was looking for one pitch, one spot and was fortunate enough to get it,” Mealey said. “It gave us the momentum we needed.”

“Momentum swings in baseball are huge,” Wood said. “When we score, we’ve got to put up a ‘0’ for them the next inning. We did that very well. The grand slam, the crowd went wild. I can’t say enough about the crowd tonight. I hope they follow us to Frank Loria tomorrow.”

Lewis County led 6-0 and Rock, whose pitching was such a key part of RCB’s run to the sectional title, was out of the game after only recording three outs.

“Rylan’s been a gamer,” Smith said. “Out of his last five outings, four of them have been stellar. For him to come out and have his B-game, it happens. We’re all entitled to having less than our perfect game every now and then. He still pounded the strike zone. He just left it up a little bit.

“We got right around the 50 mark with the pitch count and started to strategize, trying to not get ahead of ourselves, but plan a little bit.”

In the top of the third, Byrd was hit by the pitch with one out, swiped second, moved to third on Brayden Thomason’s flyout, but was left there as Carder recorded his second strikeout of the evening.

In the bottom of the third, Carder worked a one-out walk, Aman singled, then Mealey picked up his fifth RBI with a single to right.

Hunt then drove in a pair with a base hit, giving the Minutemen a commanding 9-0 lead through three innings.

In the top of the fourth inning, Xavier Carvelli singled, Nathan Lhotsky walked, then, after Ashton Shaffer’s grounder advanced courtesy runner James Barnett to third, Shaffer broke for second and got Carder to balk in a run.

“We’ve been priding ourselves lately on playing small ball and hitting and running, delayed stealing, bunting, sacrificing or squeezing. Tonight, for whatever reason, when we got guys on, we didn’t get them in,” Smith said.

In the Lewis fifth, Joey Aman walked, James was hit by the pitch and Davisson delivered an RBI single: 10-1.

With the bases loaded following a Ryder Aman walk, a flyout prevented the mercy rule from going into effect, but they got the job done in the sixth as Jeffries singled, Carder was hit by the pitch, Joey Aman walked and Mealey picked up his sixth, and game-ending, RBI with another base on balls.