OCR Text |
Show 01sen lauds player's winning efforts By TOM HARALDSEN Sports Editor BOUNTIFUL Bountiful High principal Don Perkins is retiring retir-ing this week as school ends. In his tenure at the helm of the school, the one-time athlete and coach has made no secret of his strong desire to see the Braves bring home championship trophies. So he was among those most satisfied with the Braves' 1 1-6 victory vic-tory over Taylorsville Friday at Derks Field, a win that gave Bountiful Boun-tiful its first-ever state 4-A baseball title and the school's second baseball base-ball state championship. He was far from the only satisfied satis-fied member of the Bountiful contingent, con-tingent, however. Take Phil Olsen, the Braves' coach, and a lot of other schools would love to take him. As usual, he turned out a bet-ter-than-most squad that put things together this year after coming so close many times before. In the past ten years. Olsen has had the Braves in the state tournament nine times. This season, he got the brass ring. Then there were the three seniors who started for three seasons sea-sons for Olsen Tony Smith, Sharif Shar-if Hadley, and Rhett Anderson. How sweet this victory must have been for them, coming, as it did, after an up-and-down regular season sea-son that saw Bountiful finish just 6-4 in league play. It was these same three players who were part of a 16-0 team two seasons ago that was upset by Kearns in an inter-region inter-region game, thus failing to make it to the state tournament. How about Kurt LaBellc? For most of the season, he hit with power, but right at the defense. That wasn't true in crunch time, however. "He had a great tournament for us, no question," Olsen said, pointing out that LaBelle's triples in the finals were critical. "He may I ' have had the key hit in this tournament tourna-ment in the American Fork game. We hadn't had a hit through the first three innings, and when he batted in the fourth, he fouled off a number of pitches before singling for us. That hit broke us loose." Anderson caught six tournament games on a still tender knee that he injured severely in football last fall. Of him, Olsen said, "I've never seen a gutticr performance. He plays all six games on that knee, hits .700 in the tournament, has three triples, three doubles, three singles and walks six times. He was CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE BHS's Olsen lauds player's winning; efforts ings this year, the Braves had the state championship they rightfully deserved to savor, and Perkins had the year's final state 4-A cham pionship trophy to place in the school's archives along with the many others he's cherished through the years. had, if we could just jell on the mound. Obviously, we had to reach back to do that, but Tony, Jason Shaw, Ryan, Mike and Jim were up to the task." And after beating the favored Warriors three times in four meet- CONTINUED FROM PREV. PAGE the force for us, the leader in this tournament." And Bountiful couldn't have : done it at the end without Jim Larson, Lar-son, who beat Taylorsville twice in three days. "He was only 1-2-1 entering en-tering this tournament," Olsen stated, "but he became a man here. He's over the hump now." First baseman Todd Khoury, whom Olsen said is "about the most unassuming guy out there, played his heart out. He's the most clutch hitter around." And 'Turbo's' 'Tur-bo's' season average of .374 pointed that out. And there's Ryan Jacobs, the "Goose" as they called him for his bullpen performances, who became be-came the John Stockton of the Braves. "He's just like a fly, he pestered defenses all year. Every-time Every-time you looked up, he was on base. I think he had about an .800 on-base percentage in the tournament," tourna-ment," his coach said, adding that second baseman Jacobs made no errors and turned three double plays. For Smith, who pitched and played the last week with an arm injury, it was a fitting showcase of his talents. He batted .500 in the tourney, and Olsen said "his presence pre-sence made everyone feel better. Tony won some big games for us this year when our pitching was still coming around." Brad Hartvigsen was great on defense, and Olsen said his double in Friday's final was "the back-breaker back-breaker for Taylorsville." Mike Bearnson had an excellent tournament tourna-ment as well, including a homer and two triples, and "played hard and ran the bases well. Hadley hit .667 in the tournament, was almost always on base, and made at least five diving or shoestring catches in center field. Even sophomore Jeff Casper, used sparingly in the regular regu-lar season, drove in two runs in the final. Tim Woosley backed up Smith at shortstop brilliantly as well. Olsen admits that as the season began, even with all the talent, he knew pitching was the problem. "1 felt we'd get to the tournament, wilh the bats and experience we |