Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Baseball drops conference tilt

The Oran High School baseball team traveled to Chaffee yesterday to take on their Scott-Miss foes, the Red Devils.  The Eagles entered the game as the number-one ranked team in Class 1,  Chaffee held the same position in Class 2.  Yesterday, bigger proved to be better as the hosts prevailed 6-2.

Oran scored first after two were out in the opening frame, Drew Reischman walked, he came around to score on Clay Sauceda's single that got past the fielder.

Chaffee tied it in the bottom half.

They started with a single off Eagle starter Todd Priggel, stole a base, advanced on a groundout and then scored on a two-out single.  The Devils then had another single and a hit batsman to load the bases, but Priggel was able to induce a groundout to second to end the threat.

Oran tied it in their next at-bat.

Denver Elfrink was hit by a pitch, Ty Johnson moved him over and reached himself on a bunt-single.  Kole Simms moved them both one base with a sacrifice bunt.  With Jacob Shoemaker at the plate.  Oran tried to squeeze Elfrink from third, but Chaffee pitched out and Elfrink was out at the plate.

Johnson would move on to third on the play.  He would score on a wild pitch during Shoemaker's appearance before Shoemaker would eventually walk.  Layne Johnson followed with a walk of his own.  But, both were stranded.

In the bottom of the second, Chaffee would retake the lead and not relinquish it again.

Priggel struck out the first two he faced, but then a single, a hit batter, a double steal and an error plated one. The second run would score on an RBI double.

That would be enough as the Eagles would not score again.  Even though they had plenty of base runners.

Oran stranded one in the third, two in the fourth, two in the fifth and two in the seventh.  They couldn't get the timely hit as they struck out 12 times against two Chaffee hurlers.

The Red Devils would add a single tally in the fourth and two more in the fifth.

Coach Joe Bickings said, "I felt the game against Chaffee was a game of opportunities for both teams.  It seemed like we had runners on almost every inning but so did they.  Unfortunately, they were able to come through when given the chance and we weren’t. You can give a lot of credit to their pitcher, Yarbro, as he got himself into a lot of situations with walks and was able to get out of it with a strikeout.  I thought our pitchers battled on the mound. Todd did a pretty good job of throwing strikes for the most part but it was his location that hurt him.  He just didn’t have the command today and wasn’t hitting spots at times and you can’t do that very often and get away with it against a good team.  Clay also came in a threw strikes but wasn’t able to limit the damage at times.  I preach to our guys that you can limit the damage and only allow 1 run instead of a crooked number you will have a chance to win the game.  We gave up two crooked numbers in the 2nd and 5th innings.  You limit that to one run and you have a 4-2 game instead of a 6-2 game."

Priggel (2-1) went the first three and took the loss.  He gave up four runs, three earned on six hits.  He struck out four and walked one.  Sauceda worked the last three.  He gave up two runs, both earned, on four hits.  He too, struck out four while walking one.

Oran only managed five hits on the day, all singles.  Layne and Ty Johnson each had one.  Cole and Todd Priggel did too.  Sauceda had the other and the only RBI.

The Eagles are now 6-4 overall and 2-1 in the Scott-Mississippi Conference.  They will be back in action today when they take on the 9-2 Saxony Lutheran Crusaders on the road at 4:30.





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