No. 2 Golden baseball dominates in season opener

GOLDEN — Senior Jaydon Hord started Golden’s baseball season with a bang Wednesday.

Hord absolutely obliterated a pitch in his first at-bat of the season for a 3-run home run that finally landed in the trees well over the right-centerfield fence at Golden High School. 

“That is probably the longest home run I’ve hit during high school,” Hord said after the Demons rolled to a 15-0 victory over Elizabeth that ended with the mercy rule after the top of the fourth inning. “I just saw the ball leaving and looked at the boys (dugout). I knew it was gone. I didn’t even watch it land.”

Hord had a team-high seven home runs last year during Golden’s 21-win season that ended in the Class 4A state tournament.

“That was a long way to opposite field,” Golden coach Jackie McBroom said of Hord’s blast. “We’ve been working on that. The things that we have been working on we executed today. It’s nice when you work on something and it translates over to the game. Now we just have to do that the next game.”

Golden — No. 2 in the CHSAANow.com Class 4A rankings — cranked out nine hits and 10 runs over the first two innings. Senior Noah Wicks went 3-for-3 from the plate. Junior Braeden McCarroll had a pair of ground-rule doubles and junior Jacob Dehm had a 2-run single in the bottom of the second inning that pushed the Demons’ lead to 10-0.

The Demons finished off the victory with a 5-run third inning that featured five straight Golden batters being hit-by-pitch. Sophomore Jaydon Stroup’s hit over second base drove in the final two runs of the game.

“We’ve been working on going the other way,” Hord said. “As long as we keep that we are going to be dangerous.”

McBroom acknowledges that the Demons have plenty of power in their line-up, but he wants to make sure his squad can manufacture runs late in the season.

“Our goal is to lead the state in doubles and least amount of strikeouts,” McBroom said of some statistical goals this season.

Pitching was just as impressive against the Cardinals. McCarroll pitched three innings and retired the first six batters he faced.

“I loved how he pitched,” said Wicks — Golden’s catcher — of McCarroll striking out six batters during his three innings of work. “Our game plan going in was to throw strikes and hit his spots. They couldn’t time up his fastball, so we kept throwing the fastball with a couple of sliders and curveballs in between.”

Golden graduated last year’s ace in Ethan Lewis, who was named the 4A Jeffco League MVP lasts season. However, senior Laif Palmer steps into the ace role. Palmer has already signed to play the Oregon State University next school year.

Palmer is hopefully through the roughest part of his senior campaign. He broke his ankle this winter just before the start of basketball season.

“It was a concern after he broke his ankle,” Wicks said of Palmer. “We didn’t know how long he would be out for or when he would return back to normal. He worked his butt off and is back to 100 percent. I think he is better than he was last year.”

Palmer actually played hoops for the Demons toward the end of the season.

“You hold your breath for a little bit,” McBroom said. “I’m a big advocate of kids playing multiple sports, but when you have a kid like him who breaks his ankle and then says he is going to come back to play basketball at the end of the season. I just needed him to stay healthy.”

Golden’s ace is healthy and McBroom said Palmer will get the start at home against Palisade on Saturday, March 18.