The Knights Conquer the 5A Title

Being the number one ranked team in 5A for an entire season can be a difficult task to accomplish. Often times you might find teams occasionally get a little over-confident and then you have a crucial slip up. Other times there might be a conflict of egos.

One of the most common things in all of sports is for the top team to have a bulls-eye on their back. When people refer to this, they mean that the top team gets every team’s best shot because everyone wants to be the one to knock off ‘the favorite.

The Lone Peak Knights baseball team had to deal with the bulls-eye on their back all season, and in the 5A state tournament it could not have been more evident. The Knights narrowly escaped defeat in every tournament game. They won three games by one run, one game by two, as well as avoiding a major first round upset by rallying to beat Fremont 17 to 12.

Loaded with potent bats and consistent pitching, the Knight’s fought their way to a 23-4 record on the season despite suffering a three game losing streak towards the middle of their schedule. Despite their record, the road to the title game was anything but easy.

Lone Peak rallied to defeat the Cottonwood Colts on Friday in a thrilling game that saw the Knights explode for four runs in the top of the sixth inning. The victory brought Lone Peak their third UHSAA baseball championship in the last 10 years. It also proved Utah Sports Action’s prediction in May’s issue of The Competitor’s Arena.

As the Knights and Colts were battling on the diamond for the 5A crown, they took a 1 to 1 tie into the sixth inning before the Colts struck first with a three run inning.

The Knights, not to be outdone in the sixth inning, received a spark from Dillon Robinson as he led off the inning with a home run. Soon after Robinson’s home run, Jed Goeckeritz smacked a triple that brought in two runs to tie the game. The Knights pulled ahead for good with Michael Draper’s single that brought in the go-ahead run.

The 2010 Lone Peak Knight’s stared adversity in the face and conquered it. They were the bulls-eye on their back and took every opponents’ best effort… and in the end, the Knights were the last ones standing as UHSAA’s 2010 5A baseball champions.