Journal-Sports

If you have not been out to Miller Ranch Stadium to watch the Idaho State softball team play this year, now is the time to do so.

With yet another come from behind win over Sacramento State Thursday, the Bengals will take on Portland State today in the Big Sky semifinals.

ISU has been put up insane offensive numbers this season and are now at 77 home runs on the season after hitting four on Thursday. Sophomore catcher Vicky Galasso is one of the top hitters in the nation and one of eight Bengals to earn All-Big Sky honors earlier this week after being named player of the year.

This team is scrappy, extremely talented and extremely fun to watch, I would spend more team here talking about them but  have done that enough all season long.

ISU and Portland State take the field at 10 a.m. Friday.

A day after signing Ajak Magot, Idaho State head coach Bill Evans is adding another player to the Bengals roster. Jeffrey Solarin a 6-foot-4 wing from Northwest College in Wyoming has committed to play for the Bengals. As a sophomore at Northwest College Solarin averaged 17 points per game. Where he will play for Evans remains unknown, but he would be a good fit at either the two or the three.

Evans still needs to find a backup point guard as the rumors of senior Nick Mason continue to swirl. I expect to see a least two more recruits added to the roster before the season begins in October.

For those who are unaware the spring signing day is next Wednesday April 17. At the moment the recruiting classes for the ISU basketball teams should be announced. While most of the early signees are already known, it will be interesting to see if anyone is added in the next few days.

On the ISU men’s basketball Facebook page earlier Thursday it was posted that two recruits were in town this weekend for a visit, who they are is unknown as the sources I have that would know declined to reveal the kids names.

Stay tuned to the blog for more information on recruits as it comes across and expect a story next week once things are announced.

Commentary by Jason Enes

When I interviewed former Highland High School and Idaho State basketball player Dale Wilkinson last week for a story, we got talking about his son and current Highland senior Clark and what his future will hold after his upcoming two-year LDS mission.
He told me that Clark likes to follow family tradition, which to me meant that Clark would be a Bengal when he returns to Pocatello after his mission.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Wilkinson announced via Twitter and then later confirmed to fellow Journal writer Kyle Franko he has indeed committed to play basketball for ISU.
Following in family footsteps indeed.
Wilkinson will have some big shoes to fill as his dad, Dale, played for ISU from 1978-82, but Clark is three inches shorter than his dad and a completely different player.
Dale was a 6-foot-10 jump shooter, while Clark, at 6-foot-7, has evolved over his career at Highland into a player who excels at playing above the rim, or, in layman’s terms, he likes to dunk the ball.
While Clark has improved every year during his high school career and established himself as one of the top players in the 5A ranks as a senior, those of us who have had the chance to watch him play are a bit sad he will not be suiting up for the Bengals this fall.
But expect a more focused and determined Wilkinson when he returns.
As someone who covers the Bengals this is a great get by ISU head coach Bill Evans.
Not only will Wilkinson give the team a player that cannot only play the post but shoot the ball, he will get more fans in the seats.
Fans like the local kids doing good, Wilkinson has done good things at Highland and it’s hard not to think those things would continue.
What this also shows is that Evans and his staff are keeping tabs on the local players.
I have seen Evans at numerous high school games in the city during the season watching games and I could only assume looking at some of the local players. While previous head coach Joe O’Brien did not spend a lot of time looking at the local athletes because of his ties outside the area, I expect Evans to keep a firm grip on the area during the remainder of his contract.
If I am a Bengal fan the Wilkinson signing not only excites me for the 2014 season, but also excites me for next season.
As we all know, the Bengals struggled scoring points and lost a bunch of close games, but run into any of the returning players for next year’s team one thing is clear, they will be improved.
A solid core returns, led by Chris Hansen and Tomas Sanchez. It will be interesting to see who Evans and his staff add to the team when the recruiting class is announced in a few weeks.
One thing we know for sure is that Wilkinson will be on the list and I for one am very happy to see it.

Commentary by Jason Enes

As residents of Eastern Idaho, we’re aware that the weather can change at the drop of a hat.
Take a look at this past week for instance. Tuesday it was sunny and 60 degrees, Wednesday it rained and many of us woke up Friday to a fresh coating of snow.
Welcome to springtime in Idaho.
Because of the unpredictably of the weather, the spring sports season for local high schools is filled with postponements and cancellations. Since Wednesday, most of the events scheduled haven’t been played, and most will now have to fit the games in wherever they can during the remainder of the season — weather permitting, of course.
I was at a baseball game at Marsh Valley High School Wednesday, where the Eagles hosted the two-time defending 2A state champion Malad Dragons. It had rained all morning, but it wasn’t until I arrived at the school that I realized the game shouldn’t have been played.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the baseball field at Marsh Valley High School, it looks a little different than most out there.
The only dirt on the field is in the cutouts around the bases. The rest is grass.
I had never seen a field like this until visiting American Falls High School two seasons ago, but every time I have been to one, I’ve seen teams struggle fielding the ball. Wednesday was no different, but for entirely different reasons.
Namely, mud.
I arrived at Marsh Valley 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start time of 3:30 p.m., and I took one look at the condition of the field and figured there was no way the game was going to be played.
The home plate and first base areas looked more like a mud bog than any part of a baseball diamond. And after a couple hours without rain, Mother Nature again graced us with more rain. That time, it didn’t stop.
After watching the Marsh Valley baseball team work on home plate and first base for over 30 minutes, the field looked playable. But once the game actually started it didn’t take long for things to go south.
The driving rain made fly balls difficult to catch. After every three or four pitches, balls were swapped out to be either replaced all together or wiped off and put back in play. And then there was the mud, again.
It was a nuisance the entire game. Players struggled to get footing while in the batter’s box, pitchers were slipping and baserunners had trouble on the bags, slipping every time one of them touched the bag.
And then the kids wore it, a lot of it.
Malad pitcher Kyle Daniels tried to leg out a triple in the first inning and while attempting to beat the throw to the bag from the outfield, he slid head first into the base. While the slide was clean, the wave of mud that came up from the dive was something to behold.
Daniels was tagged out. When he got up the front of his white uniform was brown. I feel sorry for his mother because there is no way that uniform will ever be white again.
The weather was a factor the entire afternoon in what turned out to a close came through four innings. But as conditions continued to worsen my thought was, “When will the umpires call this game?”
It was getting to be unsafe and the constant work on the pitching mound and home plate further delayed an already slow game.
I got my answer in the bottom of the fourth.
With a pelting rain picking up in intensity, the home plate umpire came over to the score booth where I was sitting and said, “I would hate to call this game now with it being 2-1. I told both coaches they better make the best of the fifth inning.”
Both teams did just that. The Eagles used a couple of fielding errors to win the game. The question I raised to both coaches was why did the game continue?
Neither really gave an answer, instead providing the diplomatic answer that the conditions were bad for both teams. It was apparent neither was happy the game was played.
As someone who played baseball for 15 years, I know that the umpire has discretion on when to call off a game and that player safety is supposed to be taken into account.
It’s hard for me to believe this was the case in Arimo Wednesday.
Someone could have been seriously injured, as they could in any game, but this one never should have made it to the second inning.
When does safety take a back seat to getting a game in? I guess that’s the million-dollar question.