By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  It wasn’t what they were expected, but the Santiam Senators are walking away from the DeMarini Wood Bat Tournament with confidence from an important lesson from playing against some tough competition.

“It’ll make us better seeing faster pitchers and better defenses,” said Devon BeDoya. “Just to see that just in case we see better pitchers either in league games or in high school.”

The competition included several Triple-AAA Legion ball teams, a team from Australia and host North Salem High School at Legendary Schaefer Stadium in Salem, Oregon; but the Senators went 2-2 in four team competition.

Day one was emotional.  A win against North Salem, an inspiring gritty win against Rex Putnam on muddy fields and against the elements that mother nature was tossing their way.

Getting the number one seed out of the Black Pool, confidence was high for the Senators entering Saturday’s game versus PDX Legion 1.

Though struggles were there as they lost competitive games to PDX and to the Heat, Santiam knows that they just need to take away from this tournament as they turn back to league play Tuesday at Wilson.

“Day one was definitely better than Day two,” described Brandon Gieselman. “We came out playing Day one, our offense was clicking and everything was clicking.  Today our offense wasn’t really clicking.  Our defense was there, but we didn’t capitalize on the offensive side.  That’s part of what hurt us today.”

“We just have to come out and play in league season, that’s where it’s serious,” Gieselman continued.  “That’s where we have to come together, that’s where we have to play our best baseball.  So playing against these bigger teams, we just have to take it and learn from it.  Just get better every day.”

But, the Senators admit that it was interesting to play against an international team, led by a tough pitcher in Grant Svikulis, it was fun to play against them.

“That Australian team it was fun to play them, get to play a international team, they’re pretty cool,” said Ryan Brown.  “It was pretty cool because even though they get to second base, they still talk to you and you get those accents in, they’re pretty cool.”

PHOTO GALLERY (PICTURES BY JEREMY MCDONALD)