AURORA | Travel and bad weather have conspired to keep the Regis Jesuit baseball team off its home field for all but two games so far this spring.
The Raiders looked mighty comfortable on their home diamond on Wednesday, rolling to a 12-0 Continental League victory over Highlands Ranch in five innings.
Junior Justin Thaxton doubled and homered in three trips to the plate, senior Brody Weiss reached base three times in four at-bats and scored three runs and junior Max George had a hit and scored twice for Regis Jesuit. Coach Mike Anderson’s team improved to 7-5 overall and 3-0 in the Continental League.
Senior right-hander Alex Mitchell pitched four innings for the victory, allowing just one hit in the first inning, and junior Zach Woodruff finished with a scoreless inning of work for the Raiders.
Highlands Ranch, which made it to the semifinals of the Class 5A championship series last season, dropped to 1-13 overall and 0-6 in league play.
Falcons starter Chris Sterling lasted just one inning, as he allowed three hits and four runs in the first inning and then hit Matt Mundell and allowed a single to Andrew Schmidt to open the second inning.
Reliever Jake Alexakis came on and walked Weiss, then back-to-back passed balls allowed Mundell to score. Thaxton and Reagan Todd drove in runs with groundouts to push Regis Jesuit’s lead to 8-0.
With Weiss aboard in the fourth inning, the left-handed Thaxton whacked Alexakis’ first pitch over the right field fence to make it 10-0. The Raiders tallied two more runs in the inning.
Notes: Regis Jesuit’s only other home game so far this season came on April 12, when Weiss tripled in three runs to give the Raiders a 3-2 Continental League win over Rock Canyon.
Reach Sports Editor Courtney Oakes at sports@aurorasentinel.com or 303-750-7555
REGIS JESUIT 12, HIGHLANDS RANCH 0 (5 inn.)
Score by innings:
High. Ranch 000 00 — 0 1 1
Regis Jesuit 404 4x — 12 5 0
HIGHLANDS RANCH (ab-r-h-rbi)
Tyler Zickel 3b 3-0-1-0, Tanner Brown 2b 3-0-0-0, Nick Schumpert ss 2-0-0-0, Austin Schmitt c 1-0-0-0, Ben Hoffman cf 2-0-0-0, Brandon Giorgi dh 1-0-0-0, Nick Berry rf 2-0-0-0, Scott O’Brien 1-0-0-0, Aaron Dammel lf 1-0-0-0, Mikey Ripka ph 0-0-0-0. Totals 16-0-1-0. Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so): Chris Sterling (L, 1-4-6-6-1-1), Jake Alexakis (3-1-6-6-5-3).
REGIS JESUIT (ab-r-h-rbi)
Brody Weiss ss 2-3-1-0, Justin Thaxton 3b 3-2-2-3, Max George 2b 2-2-1-2, Reagan Todd 1b 2-0-0-1, Matt Schmidt ph 0-0-0-0, Anthony Donovan dh 1-1-0-0, Brooks Urich cf 3-0-0-0, Zach Woodruff rf 3-0-0-0, Matt Mundell c 1-0-0-0, JP Fasone ph 0-0-0-0, Andrew Schmidt lf 2-1-1-0, Brent Schwarz ph 1-0-0-0. Totals 20-12-5-6. Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so): Alex Mitchell (W, 4-1-0-0-3-3), Zach Woodruff (1-0-0-0-1-2).
2B — Regis Jesuit: Justin Thaxton. HR — Regis Jesuit: Thaxton (1 on in 4th).