By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

STAYTON, Ore.–  The Post 58 Crushers found a way to get it done to close out Monday’s Doubleheader finale with the Post 20 Dirtbags of Dallas, forcing a split of the games following their comeback-from-behind victory 6-5.

After surrendering 11 seventh inning runs to close out the first game, falling to their Area-3 league rivals 12-1, the Crushers found themselves down 5-1 going into the bottom of the third inning.  The Dirtbags bats had continued into the second game and Dallas’ Bennett Cresswell had picked up where Dalin McDonald left off.  

McDonald went the distance, allowing one earned run and struck out six with Creswell going five innings on 54 pitches to help the Dirtbags to continue to dominate.  The bats produced 23 hits, which saw West Salem’s Aiden Rock collected five of them and driving in 14RBI’s, Central’s Santi Alacron driving in three in the doubleheader, had Post 20 looking for the series win two games in of the three-game series.

“I don’t really know what happened, we just got the bats going…we got a few hits and kept going I guess,” said Rock.  “That did help (in Game 2), we had the momentum and kept it.  We just got too comfortable at the end and let it get away there at the end there.”

The Crushers had to go to the bullpen early in the second game.  Third inning actually as Regis’ Bryson Nygren left the game with cramps and the squad turned to McNary’s Josh Allen to see if he could slow down the Dirtbags momentum in some fashion.

And though two runs scored in his first inning of work, Allen did what he was supposed to.  He shoved and shut down Post 20. Pitching a shutout from the fourth inning onward.

“I’ve relieved the whole year for McNary so I felt pretty confident about the spot I was in.  I’m familiar with this.  I knew I just had to come in, throw strikes and give us a chance,” Allen said.

Then, in the sixth inning, just as the Dirtbags went to the bullpen and some of that late Spring rain blew through, the Crushers took a page out of the Post 20 book and found their bats.  Scoring three times in the sixth to cut the 5-1 deficit to 5-4 going to the seventh.  Allen once more shutdown the Dirtbags bats to give his offense a chance down the stretch.

With one out, the Crushers got two on back-to-back errors.  Sawyer Enderle followed that up with a RBI single to tie the game.  Colson Swartz was on second following Enderle’s single, but the two moved to third and second respectively after Ben Lane’s sacrifice hit.  Allowing Allen to be the hero of the second game, the Celtic-grad put the ball in play and a bang-bang play at first that saw the ball jarred loose allowed Swartz to score and gave Post 58 the 6-5 victory.

“We just knew we needed to get some hits together and once we got momentum, we were riding it.  That’s exactly what we did,” Allen said.  “We need to carry it into the next game, it’s crucial.  Whoever’s riding momentum is going to come out on top.”

Wednesday will conclude the three-game Area-3 series over at Central High School in Independence.  First pitch is at 5pm with the chance to take the series win happening then.

“Just get that momentum back, keep it on the gas pedal  and not get too comfortable,” said Rock.  “You can’t get too comfortable.  You got to stay with it all seven-innings and all 21 outs.”

Photos By Jeremy McDonald