Eagles Excel at Grandin Fall Classic

The Oran High School baseball team picked up three wins over the weekend during the third annual Bank of Grandin Fall Classic.  This year's format was revamped as the tournament was changed to three pre-scheduled games.

The Eagles kicked things off Friday evening in Ellsinore, taking on the home-standing East Carter Redbirds., who were Class 3 last spring.

Oran batted around in the top of the first and plated five runs and cruised to a 10-4 victory.  The Eagles spread the game among five different pitchers to keep every one eligible for Saturday's two games, that meant limiting each hurler to 30 or fewer pitches.  Connor Kern (1-0-1) tossed the first and picked up the win.  He walked two.

Offensively,  Ty Johnson and Kaden Hargrove had two hits apiece.  Freshmen, Nic Massey and Luke Peterson had two two-out RBIs.

The two-hour time limit expired at the end of the fourth inning.

[Game one box score]

Game two was also played at Ellsinore on a field, that at times, resembled a sandbox.

The opponent was another Class 3, West County.  Once again the Eagles batted around in the top of the first.  This time they scored three and left the bases loaded with none out.  Oran won 5-1 in a game that made it through six before the time limit expired.

Ty Johnson (1-0) got the start and threw five innings.  He allowed three hits, one earned run.  He walked two and struck out six.

At the plate, Dawson Menz was 3-3 with a double and two runs driven in.  Johnson had a pair of hits as well.

[Game two box]

The third game was against Class 2 Van Buren at Van Buren.  Oran was the home team on the scoreboard and did not dent it until the second inning this time when they took a 2-0 on their way to an 11-2 rout.  The game was called during the bottom of the fifth due to the time limit.

The Eagles batted around in the third and sent eight to the plate in the fourth, scoring four in both frames.

Kaden Hargrove (1-0) pitched four innings.  He allowed no runs and two hits.  He walked one and struck out five as the Eagles improved to 4-0 on the year.

"K"ole Simms went 3-3 with a homer and three RBI.  Dawson Menz was 2-2 with a double and drove in two.  Todd Priggel, Carter Heuring and Lane Peterson also added a pair of hits.

Coach Joe Bickings said afterward, "It's always a good weekend if you can go 3-0 especially since we went 0-3 at the Bank of Grandin Classic last year.  I thought we hit the ball fairly well this weekend and for the most part, pitched well too.  We did have a few moments where we didn't look like that great of a team but that is what fall baseball is for.  It was really good to see our offense come to life and take advantage of a few opportunities.  Scoring 26 runs in 3 games is nice to be able to do but I also feel like we left a few runs out there.  Our pitching wasn't the greatest at times as I felt like we fell behind early in the count too often.  We did battle back and were able to limit the damage when the other team got runners on base.  Again overall a pretty good weekend but there is still a lot of improvements for this team that needs to be done."

The Eagles host Leopold at 4:30 on Tuesday.