OREM — It will be a replay of last year’s matchup for the 4A state baseball championship.

Crimson Cliffs beat Dixie 4-2 Thursday night in an elimination game at Utah Valley University, sending the defending champion Mustangs back into the title series against last year’s runner up, Snow Canyon.

It was the fourth consecutive elimination game that Crimson survived this week after Monday’s shocking 5-1 loss to Green Canyon sent the Mustangs into the loser’s bracket.

“Still got a job to do. We got on that bus in St. George and this was nothing to take lightly, this was a business trip,” Mustangs manager Justin Abbott told St. George News. “On Monday it kind of happened that way. I don’t know. We’re a fun baseball team.”

Abbott started junior Steele Barben on the mound for Crimson. While he gave up a run in the first inning on a passed ball and another on a sacrifice fly in the second, Barben looked comfortable throughout his 3.2 innings of work.

Barben surrendered the two Dixie runs off four hits. He worked around five walks and struck out three Flyers in the win.

Senior Brexten Starley relieved and pitched the other 3.1 innings for Crimson. He also yielded four hits but allowed no runners to score. He walked none and struck out two.

“We spent a lot of time as a staff last night talking about where we wanted to go (with the pitchers),” Abbott said. “We had a couple of options. Brex was behind the plate and I asked him, ‘Hey, are you good to pitch?’ and there was no hesitation. We knew what we wanted to do and the guys were ready.”

After Boston Vest scored to make it 1-0 Dixie in the top of the first, Crimson wasted no time in the bottom of the frame and tied it 1-1 with an RBI groundout from Parker Andrus.

Braxton Yates hit a sacrifice fly for an RBI and a 2-1 Dixie lead after the top of the second but the Flyers would not score again.

Logan Leavitt pitched a valiant game for Dixie, throwing five innings and battling Crimson’s deep lineup every pitch of the way. The junior finished with a line of five innings pitched, seven hits, four runs, three walks and one strikeout.

“Logan’s tough, he’s a competitor,” Abbott said. “We just had the approach of, ‘Let’s go have a quality at-bat and get the next guy up.’ We weren’t trying to do anything different.”

Crimson kept the game tight with some sparkling defensive gems, none better than Jayger Baldwin’s leaping dive through the air to steal a Dixie hit in the fourth.

“I saw it off the bat and started sprinting for the foul line,” Baldwin said. The senior outfielder wowed fans with similar flashes of leather at the state championship last year.

“I knew I had to lay out, and it was all or nothing at that point,” he said. “Good defense is one of the most important things in baseball. When your pitcher is throwing strikes you’ve got to help him out.”

The Mustangs finally got to Leavitt in the fifth inning. Baldwin led off with a single. After a flyout, Petey Soto singled up the middle to put two runners aboard.

Trey Evans and Tyler West then had back-to-back RBI hits and Crimson was ahead for good 3-2.

Ty Maynard’s RBI in the sixth was an insurance run for Crimson that provided the final margin.

Now the defending champs turn their attention to Snow Canyon. The Mustangs and Warriors split their season series, with each team winning at home 1-0 in virtually identical ballgames.

Crimson beat Snow Canyon in two games at Bruce Hurst Field in St. George last year to win its first state championship.

The rematch is sure to provide some fireworks. 

“We got to just take the same thing we’ve done the last four days,” Abbott said. “We just got to go out and play some baseball and have some fun. Whoever comes to the yard the next two days is going to enjoy some good baseball.”

Game 1 is Friday night at UVU at 7 p.m. Game 2 is slated for Saturday at noon and if a third game is necessary it will be played Saturday at 2:30 p.m. in Orem.

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