2021 35+ Cactus Consolation

Utah Blues 11, Minnesota Bruins 5

Submitted by Jarred Bates, Blue’s manager

I’ve been coming to the Arizona MSBL World Series for the past seven years and have been running the 35+ Cactus Utah Blues for the past four years. I also run a 32+ and 42+ team here in Utah. It turns out we won our local Utah championships for both teams as well! Each year we live and learn and our team continues to build continuity and get better.

This year we started out 3-0 with our excellent pitching and timely hitting. We then stopped hitting the next few games and came back to the pack. Our team missed the Tucson trip by one earned run allowed, so we went into the consolation round and got hot again. We got great pitching from Jeff Cole, Matt Stowell, and Stephen Bonnain. These guys are horses and were awesome. Matt pitched a complete game 3-2 win allowing one earned run against the then-undefeated Tucson team that was very good.

Jeff finished off the championship game against the Minnesota Bruins for us. While most of our guys are from Utah, we also have players from Houston, Arizona, and North Carolina. We didn’t reach our ultimate goal but we have the talent to get there!