Baseball, boys soccer games open spring high school sports season for San Juan County teams

by Rhett Sifford
Sports Editor
It’s hard to believe, but by the time you read these words several events will already be in the books as part of the opening days of the spring high school sports season in southeastern Utah.
San Juan Baseball
The San Juan baseball team did the honors on Monday, March 4 at the annual Cactus Classic at Virgin Valley High School in Mesquite, NV.
The Broncos faced a familiar foe in the opening and closing game of the tournament – Duchesne. The Eagles are a 2A East Region rival, so the two teams will face each other twice in the regular season in addition to the two games they played in Mesquite this past week.
In their first matchup of the year San Juan scored four runs in the top of the fifth inning to come from behind and beat the Eagles 4-3.
The scoring was sparse. The only other runs came when Duchesne plated three baserunners to take a 3-0 lead in the first inning.
The Broncos collected five hits in the win while the Eagles tallied four. Duchesne committed two errors in the loss.
It was small ball that got the job done for San Juan. Three Broncos earned a hit and an RBI apiece – Parker Snyder, Talon Mendoza, and Cash Palmer. Mendoza hit a triple and Palmer got a double.
Brody Bilbao and Corbin Middleton got the remaining hits, a double and a single respectively. And Snyder registered his first stolen base of the season.
After allowing the opening-inning runs San Juan starter Jaiten Knight settled down to pitch two shutout innings. He struck out three and walked one on the day.
Jagger Nieves was lights out once he took the mound to start the fourth inning. He also struck out three Eagles in his first win of the season.
Snyder led the team defensively with six putouts. Branten Bethea collected five. Mendoza, Derrick White, and Jake Ivins all got two putouts apiece. And Palmer had one.
Following the season-opening win San Juan suffered three straight losses to conclude the tournament. They fell to Moapa Valley, NV 10-4 and Bonneville 4-1 on Tuesday, March 5 then closed out their trip to Mesquite with a loss to Duchesne on Wednesday, March 6.
Branten Bethea, Jake Ivins, Cash Palmer, and Cooper Palmer all registered hits in the loss to Moapa Valley. Cash drove in a couple runs while Bethea and Ivins got one RBI apiece. Talon Mendoza struck out six Bonneville batters in the loss to the Lakers.
The Broncos are coming off their best season in 13 years with the third-place finish they earned last year. After suffering a loss in the second round of the 2023 2A state tournament the team won four straight games, nearly playing back into the state championship game.
Though the team lost a number of key players to graduation there are several who have steadily gained varsity experience over the past couple seasons and are eager to prove themselves this year.
Bronco Head Coach Jens Nielson, who’s entering his sixth season at the helm, told the Deseret News that the team is excited to be getting the year underway.
“We have a great group of boys, several with significant varsity experience,” he said. “We bring back one senior [Parker Snyder] who will be a great player and a great leader.
“We fill out well with a talented junior and sophomore class that will contribute to this team’s success. The key is playing together as a team. If we do that, this group will do some great things.”
San Juan is predicted to finish third in the 2A East according to the Deseret News preseason coaches’ poll.
The Broncos are back on the diamond this Friday and Saturday, March 15-16 at the Red Devil Invitational in Moab.
They’ll take on Grand County, North Summit, Emery, and Montezuma-Cortez. The team is set for a doubleheader home opener against North Summit on Tuesday, March 19.
Monticello Baseball
The Monticello baseball team also opened the 2024 campaign this past week with a tough matchup against local rival Grand County in Moab.
The Buckaroos gave the Red Devils a run for the money until Grand blew the game open in the last two innings. Grand opened the scoring with a two-run first inning then added one in the bottom of the fourth.
Monticello responded with four runs in the top of the fifth to take a 4-3 lead, but the Red Devils answered with five runs in the bottom of the fifth and three more in the sixth for a convincing 11-4 comeback.
Freshman Arturo Gutierrez led the Bucks with two hits but fellow freshman Cache Young drove in all three of Monticello’s earned runs with a double in the fourth. Triston Felix had the only other hit in the game to complete the freshman trifecta.
Gutierrez also led MHS in the field with eight putouts. Zac Thayn stole one base in the loss. And Felix struck out seven Red Devil batters in his first-ever varsity pitching effort. The Buckaroos are off now until they travel across the state line to meet Nucla, CO on March 19.
Monticello is looking to improve on a tough 2023 season that produced just one win and 15 losses. Josh Keyes, who has just begun the third year of his second stint as head coach of the Bucks, says the team is young but excited to be playing baseball.
They’ll have their hands full in the fairly well-stacked 2A East Region that includes local rivals Grand and San Juan, Duchesne, Gunnison Valley, North Sevier, and North Summit.
Monticello scored just 2.9 runs per game last season while allowing 14.7. They’re going to have to draw those numbers a lot closer together this season to find the win column. Mason Atwood and Zac Thayn are the team’s returning seniors.
San Juan Boys Soccer
The San Juan High School boys soccer team opened the 2024 season as well this past week, hosting South Sevier on Tuesday, March 5 and Grand County on Thursday, March 7.
The Broncos scored two goals on the Rams in the second half but fell 4-2 on Tuesday. Then it was all Red Devils on Thursday in a 7-0 shutout loss.
Parkar Sopena and Cole Duke scored San Juan’s first two goals of the season in the matchup with South Sevier on March 5.
This year the Broncos are looking to build on their 2023 campaign, in which they registered three wins – the most in program history. Head coach Jay Jones called it the best season so far in what has been a seven-year program-building process.
“The boys are gaining more confidence in themselves and their team and that will be key to our success in the future,” explained Jones. “It has been amazing to see their growth through the past couple years.”
After their two opening games this past week San Juan was not scheduled to hit the field again for a full two weeks. They’ll play at Millard on Tuesday, March 19 then at Gunnison Valley on Thursday, March 21.