On Wednesday, the Fruita Monument Varsity baseball team traveled to Montrose for their first league play game of the year, a back-and-forth contest that went eight innings. Ending with a Montrose walk off was an unfortunate start to league play and brings their overall record to 4-. This Friday, Montrose will come here for the second game before Fruita travels to Denver to take on Heritage on Saturday.
The team didn’t start the year as they had hoped, losing the season opener to Vista Peak but bouncing back, going 3-0 during the Bill Fanning Classic tournament. They then would go on the road to Arizona over spring break and have a rough trip with an overall showing of 1-3. Then coming back, they faced a highly touted Grandview team, including the top ranked 2026 player in the state Ethan Wachsmann (Wake Forest commit) who recently before this had hit 100 miles an hour in his return to the mound. They would lose this game, but the team came back nicely with a 9 to 3 win over Castle View the next day.
Coming into the matchup with Montrose, the team was 3-6 with their most recent matchup a 19 to 4 loss versus Discovery Canyon. During the 2024 and 2025 season, in two matchups, Fruita was 2-0 against Montrose with 2 mercy rules albeit Montrose’s overall record was -19. Fruita’s team coming back this year looks very similar to last year’s roster losing 4 seniors and 2 players but retaining key players Senior Josh Weaver (Cowley commit), Senior Gavin Cardoza (Eastern Arizona commit), Junior Blake Elsberry and Senior Carson Hines (Northeast commit) all returning. Juniors Asa Alstad, Xander Vargas Jones and Cooper Skalla and Sophomores Sam Hawkins and Ryan Madsen all come into this season with more experience.
Friday’s game will start at 4 pm ,and it should be a good one with Fruita trying to avoid the sweep and Montrose trying to start undefeated in a tough Southwestern League featuring Grand Junction and Palisade, which are both ranked in the Prep Baseball Power 25.
After Friday night, they will travel to Denver to take on Heritage and then come back to prepare to take on Palisade (13) next week which will be a critical 2 games for Fruita as they work to extend their streak to 11 consecutive Southwestern League Championships.