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Plain City • Cottonwood senior Hunter Blunt's three-run home run in the top of the fifth inning lifted the Colts to a 3-2 victory over Region 1 top seed Fremont in the Class 5A state baseball tournament's second round Wednesday.

Blunt stepped to the plate with two outs and Dayj Piersall and Cam Perkins at second and third with a swirling wind to left field complementing the intermittent snowfall.

The right-handed Blunt worked a 2-1 count and decided to look for something offspeed from Fremont starter Kyler Bush.

"I was looking for something to drive, and he left a curveball nice and inside for me to get the RBIs in for my team," said Blunt, whose home run was his second of the season. "I was expecting offspeed, and he was throwing that curveball for strikes all day long.

"And then he just left it up for me to drive the ball."

The Silverwolves scored in the bottom half of the fifth on Kade Skeen's two-out single down the third-base line, but Cottonwood starting pitcher Steven Dennis and reliever Kyler Olsen teamed to preserved the victory.

Cottonwood advanced to play American Fork in a winners bracket quarterfinal Monday at Kearns High.

Bush had kept the Colts off-balance until the fifth-inning rally.

"One inning, one swing," Fremont coach Garrett Clark said. "[Blunt's] a great player, first of all, and looking at their box scores, he's been hot all week.

"And we fell behind him 2-1. If we got him back to 3-1, we were actually not going to throw him anything decent to swing at. But unfortunately the 2-1 pitch was good enough for him."

Other than Skeen's RBI single, which brought Fremont to within a run, Dennis managed to keep the Silverwolves' bats at bay for most of the game. Dennis forced Fremont cleanup hitter Brennan Roundy into a 6-4-3 double play to end the third inning, and Olsen was flawless in the sixth and seventh innings.

"The plan was to work inside and let them get jammed and get themselves out," Dennis said. "I wanted to make them hit ground balls and let my teammates make plays to back me up, and they did." —

Cottonwood 3, Fremont 2

R Cottonwood's Hunter Blunt drills a three-run home run in the fifth inning for all the Colts' runs.

• Cottonwood starting pitcher Steven Dennis earns the win, while reliever Kyler Olsen pitches the final two scoreless innings.

• Fremont cuts its deficit to one run in the bottom of the fifth inning on Kade Skeen's run-scoring single.