Baseball improves to 8-0

On Thursday the Oran High School baseball team hosted Advance.  Last year the teams met twice during the fall season.  Both times the Eagles picked up 5 inning mercy-rule victories.  Yesterday, however, was one of the closest games of the year as Oran scored three in the first and Layne Johnson went the distance giving up only one hit, a two-out home run in the fourth and the Eagles won 3-1.
That was the same score by which Oran won their opener against Ellington at Ellsinore in the opening round of the Bank of Grandin Fall Classic.

Todd Priggel and Drew Reischman both singled with one out in the first.  Then, after a passed ball, Cole Priggel drove both home with a single. Denver Elfrink hit a double to make it 3-0 and that would be the last time Oran would score.

Meanwhile, Johnson went the distance to improve to 3-0.  He gave up only the one hit and run.  He walked one and struck out 9.

Coach Joe Bickings said, "Yesterday was a good win for us against a quality Advance team. It was nice to see that our pitching and defense look good while our bats went a little cold. Layne had one mistake on the mound that cost him and fell behind a couple of times but it was nice to see his pitch count low enough to get through 7 innings with 9 strikeouts. We didn't hit the ball like we have been in the last couple of games but I knew that it would happen at some point. Give their kid on the mound credit as he threw strikes and mixed it up well to keep us off balance. I still feel like we hit the ball decently but there were a couple of times that we hit it right at them and that's just baseball.

The Eagles will look to keep the streak alive next Tuesday when they host the Leopold Wildcats at 4;30.