By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

AURORA, Ore.– North Marion figured out something that three teams previously couldn’t against Santiam.

Slow down their high power offense and turn it into runs offensively against their strong defense.

The result:  7-3 in favor of the Huskies as the Senators suffer their first league loss.

“Well, coming into the game, we knew they were going to be tough,” said North Marion’s Grant Henry.  “Andy Smitchz, our pitcher, he did a really good job pounding the zone, made them hit it.  We didn’t get many hits until those last couple of innings.  But going into it, we knew we had to.”

For Santiam, though the pain hurts of knowing that their perfect league season was spoiled, they know that they got plenty of games left to make up for this loss.

Ryan Brown knows that this loss kind of gives his team a wake-up call of sorts and sinks them back into reality but give them the fire to want vengeance against them the next time you play them.  Whenever that might be.

“I’ve been on a lot of teams who were undefeated and I’m kind of glad it happen so we don’t go out of league and into State, if we’re go undefeated, and be on cloud nine like we’re better than everybody and get hit by a team like this,” Brown described the situation his team is going through.

“This is a good team and we’ve played good teams in the past and we beat them,” Brown continued.  “I know we can take this team, it fires us up because you got to get them next time and you have that fire against them because they beat you and you didn’t want them to.”

Up 4-1 the Huskies thought they were going to cruise to the finish line until the Senators scored two in the top of the fifth inning to make it interesting at 4-3 behind a resurgence in their defense after two minor blips resulting in runs earlier in the game.

“It’s good for us because it shows that we can compete,” said Brown.  “I mean we’re not a team to take easy, neither are they.  So we cut it down to one run, we needed those key hits and key plays that we didn’t make.”

Though North Marion added another run, you could feel the intensity and you knew that if the Huskies didn’t play sound defense against Santiam, the Senators were going to make them pay with their bats.

The defense,with Brandon Gieselman of Santiam finding his groove in the later innings, you could see the fight with these boys.

“I like it,” said Brown.  “It shows the fire in our eyes.  Once we comeback to get them on Friday, I think we’ll have more and we would want to beat them because they’re our rivals in this league.”

Knowing this, the coaching staff of North sat them down and told them they need to pick it up behind productive at-bats if they were to out-hit a almost identical opponent in the Senators.

“So, those last couple of innings, (the) coaches told us in the dugout. ‘You need to step it up’” started Henry. “And when the bases are loaded in the bottom of the sixth…Nick Iliyn, he hit one to the shortstop, got an RBI, and that’s what our team focus’ on is productive at-bats.”

As the league season continues to roar to it’s end, North knows, as they look to Wilson Wednesday, they need to be on top of their game as these Senators and West Linn are breathing down their necks in the standings.

“They’re both very good teams,” started Henry.  “Like I said, (just) have productive at-bats.  Pitchers need to keep throwing strikes and just gonna win it.”

For the Senators, it’s onto another tough challenge in West Linn Thursday at West Linn before hosting these same Huskies here on Friday as they too continue to make for a playoff push out of the league.

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PHOTOS (PICTURES BY JEREMY MCDONALD)