Tooele and Stansbury were tied 1-1 going into the seventh inning, and both teams had opportunities to score in the final frame.

Tooele could not cash in on its chance in the top of the inning while Stansbury made good of its opportunity in the bottom half of the inning to eke out a 2-1 victory and sweep its region games against the Buffaloes this year.

For a moment it looked like Tooele pitcher Skyler Holt, who was throwing a superb game, would score the winning run when he opened the top of the seventh with a triple over the head of Stansbury’s center fielder.

Stansbury pitcher Brennan Walker then struck out Spencer Bunn for the first out.

With Holt at third and one out, Walker faced Chris Lane at the plate. With one strike, the Buffaloes attempted a suicide squeeze and Holt shot off third base with a good jump on the pitch. Lane fouled off the bunt to foil the play.

With two strikes, Tooele still had the squeeze play on. This time Lane missed the ball for strike three and Holt was caught between home plate and third. Stansbury catcher Colton Barkdull ran Holt back to third where he was tagged out to end the threat.

Stansbury’s Taylor Hunt reached first on an error to open the bottom of the seventh and was replaced by pinch runner Matt Lindsley. With Beau Levya at the plate for the Stallions, Lindsley was picked off at first by Holt.

Levya walked to still give the Stallions a shot at victory in the seventh. Levya stole second and then stole third to put the Stallions in good position to win with one out.

“Beau went on his own on those steals,” said Stansbury coach Ray Clinton after the game. “He (Levya) has good speed and reads pitchers well.”

Stansbury’s Cody Young was at the plate with Levya at third.

“I told Cody to get his bat on the ball and put something in the outfield. The main thing was to put the ball in play,” Clinton said.

Young hit a slow chopper to third and Levya was on a sprint to home plate. Tooele fielded the ball and a rushed throw home was over the catcher’s head and Levya scored with winning run. It would have been a close play even with a good throw.

Tooele’s Holt and winning pitcher Walker both went the distance on the mound and turned in solid performances. Holt allowed five hits and Walker gave up four hits. Each team committed one error.

“Both pitchers threw well. I thought we would do better against Skyler after we had already seen him in the first game, but he kept us off-balance and we ended up hitting a lot of pop ups and ground balls,” Clinton said.

Stansbury senior pitcher Walker cruised throughout the afternoon striking out nine Buffaloes.

“It was Brennan’s first start in awhile and he really wanted to pitch against Tooele where he played last year and thought he didn’t get much of a chance. I coached him on the JV team last year at Tooele and figured if they had an all-state JV team Brennan would have been on it,” Clinton said.

The Stallions scored the first run of the game when Hunt singled to left with one out in the bottom of the second. With two outs, Young ripped an RBI double to the left-center gap and Hunt raced home from first to give Stansbury a 1-0 lead.

Tooele tied the game in the bottom of the fourth when Colton Burr singled to center field and then stole second base. Burr came home to tie the game on a deep single to the left field corner by Anthony Montano.

Stansbury put a runner at second base with one out in the bottom of the fifth, but could not bring him home. Matt Cuellar walked and stole second, but Holt got a pop out and a strikeout to end the fifth.

Some superb defensive plays on both sides also kept this game close.

Burr walked for Tooele in the top of the sixth, but he was then picked off by Walker. In the bottom of the sixth, Clint Walker of Stansbury walked, but then was gunned down by Burr trying to steal second base.

With the victory, Stansbury sits alone in third place in Region 6 with a 4-2 record. Tooele is fifth with a 2-3 region mark. Four teams from Region 6 qualify for the 16-team 4A state tournament.

Mark Watson: mwatson@tooeletranscript.com