Aloha Hands Olys First Loss Of Tournament

By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

KEIZER, Ore.– Ideally, you want to go undefeated. Realistically, sitting 3-0 in Pool Play Thursday night in the Volcanoes 18U Summer Tournament, the Olympian Baseball Club could have afforded a game to drop.

Owing the tie-breaker over the Showtime Oregon squad, the Oly’s had already clinched the top-seed out of the Pool entering their game Aloha. But momentum for Friday’s 4:30pm semi-final game was the plan.

Aloha, knowing they were done after this game however, threw a monkey wrench into the Olympian plans on this game. Ruining the Olys goal of a perfect record through pool play, taking advantage of four costly errors as Aloha took the game 7-6 on this evening.

“We just kind of came into this game knowing that it wasn’t a must win, but we should be playing every game like it’s a must win. We’ll come out tomorrow knowing that it’s going to count now, we got to win tomorrow to hopefully go win the Championship,” said Andrew Rogers.

The Olympians hit a rough start to the game Wednesday, surrendering six runs over the first two innings before scoring four of the final five runs the next three (Picture By Jeremy McDonald)

If the Olympians win their 4:30pm game, they’ll play the winner of Showtime Oregon and Showtime Northwest for the Championship at 7pm at Volcanoes Stadium.

And similar to what brother Chris Rogers did Thursday against the Saints, Andrew Rogers had broken up the Olympian’s opposition’s no-hit bid in the top half of the third inning. The previous inning the Oly’s drew three walks and later scored two off a Dayton Walker sacrifice hit and an error that had scored the run to bring the Olympians back to within one, down 3-2 into the bottom half of the second inning.

The Oly’s defense allowed six runs during the first two innings before settling in the next three as their offense was able to pull them back into the contest. But the Olympians weren’t able to capitalize as much as they would have hoped or wish as the time-limit was reached following the top half of the fifth inning.

“We just got to come out swinging the bats and get runs on the board quick and hopefully our defense can shut them down. Get three-up, three-down and get out of the game quick,” said Rogers, who went 2-for-3 with 2RBI’s in the game.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald