The Oran High School baseball team rallied late to pick up a victory over the Bloomfield Wildcats, 2-1, on Coach Joe Bickings' 31st birthday, yesterday.Neither team was able to dent the scoreboard through the first four innings, but it took a couple of nice defensive plays by the Eagles to make that happen.
In the 2nd inning, Bloomfield had a lead off single. Then with one-out a pop fly toward shallow center looked like it would give the Wildcats the first scoring opportunity of the day. But a nice running catch, with his back to the infield, by Cole Priggel produced out number 2 and a strike out ended the inning.
In the fourth, after a lead off walk was followed by a strike out, the clean up hitter hit a long drive toward the gap in left center. Todd Priggel made a fantastic running catch, just in front of the fence, to rob the hitter of extra bases and an RBI. The base runner had to scurry back to first. Once again, a strike out ended the inning.
Drew Reischman got the start on the mound and went the first 5 plus innings. He allowed only 1 unearned run on 3 hits and 2 walks. He struck out 7. After allowing a lead off single in the 5th, Layne Johnson came in with Oran down 1-0. Johnson struck out the side.
In the bottom of the sixth, Reischman picked up only the third Eagle hit of the day with a double to right. Then with 2 outs, Cole Priggel hit a hard, slicing line drive to right that was misplayed and went to the fence, which drove in Reischman and allowed Priggel to circle the bases.
Johnson closed out the game with another 1-2-3 inning, with all three coming on strike outs, to pick up the win. He went 2 innings, striking out all 6 he faced. He is now 2-0 on the year.
Reischman and Cole Priggel were both 2 for 3 at the plate. Priggel also had 2 stolen bases to go along with the RBI. Clay Sauceda had the only other hit.
Coach Bickings told the blog, "Yesterday's game was a good early test for this ball team. Our offense wasn't clicking like it was in the 1st two games and sometimes that’s how baseball works. A lot of it had to do with the pitcher that was on the bump for Bloomfield. He pitched a heck of a game for them. When it comes to a pitchers dual like that, sometimes it takes the little things (fundamentals) to help you win it. We made the 1st mistakes in the 5th inning. I feel that those mistakes were the lack of experience and some nerves. But it's good for the ball club to experience that type of game and pressure in the fall so we can learn from these moments and grow from them. Fortunately for us we didn't quit and were able to capitalize on their mistakes in the bottom of the 6th inning by scoring 2 runs to give us the lead and eventually the win."
"Sometimes it may come down to things that you just can't teach. One of those moments was when Todd Priggel made an amazing catch on the run in the 4th inning. To make that catch in the gap on a well hit ball was a game changer. If that drops, they score a run and have another runner in scoring position with less than 2 outs. He is just a gifted athlete and can run like a deer and cover some ground."
"I also thought Drew threw a heck of a game today as well. He wasn't hitting his spots like we wanted him to but with the movement he has on his fastball sometimes you can still miss in the right spots. He just tired out down the stretch".
"Then Layne came in and just shut the door on them. I didn't know he had 6 strikeouts in the 2 innings he worked until after the game. He proved last year that he can handle late inning relief. For the most part, you need a strikeout pitcher in those late innings."
Bickings was given a celebratory ice water dousing and serenaded with an off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday" by his team after the game.
Oran improved to 3-0 and will be back in action this afternoon when they travel to Advance for a 4:30 first pitch. It will Advance's first fall baseball game.
No comments:
Post a Comment