By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  Sprague’s Quinn Altman and Scappoose’s Luke McNabb found themselves in one of those old fashion pitcher duels.

It was a fast 2-1 Olympian win timewise, but the game left both teams with a battled-tested taste as both enter the homestretch of the 2022 preseason.  As the Indians wrap up their preseason slate against Dallas on Monday, the close-knit game gave Sprague an appetizer for Friday’s game with Grant back in South Salem.

“I think we’re looking good for Grant,” Altman starts.  “It’ll be great to come off of a win.  We fought hard.  We’ll clean a couple of things up and I think we’ll be ready, it’ll be great.”

Altman went the distance, throwing a three strikeout two-hitter, compare to McNabb’s six innings on the mound.  McNabb, who struck out two Oly batters, held Sprague to their lowest run-total of the year with the Scappoose offense pushing ahead of the Olympians 1-0 going into the third inning.

The 1-0 deficit held going into the fourth inning with Sprague’s defense hoping for one of those breaks to go their way.

And it did.

With the first pitch of the bottom of the fourth inning, Chris Rogers hit a lead-off home run over the left field fence to knot the game up at one.  Giving confidence to the Olys offense with the tiebreaking run coming in the bottom half of the fifth inning.  The run coming off of a Brandon Stinnett sacrifice fly-out that drove Taylor Brenneman home from third base.

“I had fun with my at-bat and sure enough, everything I’ve been working for paid off.  It gave us the momentum for the rest of the game and I’m really happy with how it turned things around in the game,” Rogers said of his home run.  “It’s going to be important going into Friday, we’ll play a good team in the Grant Generals.  We’ll keep doing our thing, putting metal to the pedal.

“We didn’t hit the ball as well as we wanted to today, but seeing the pitching that we saw today..he brough it pretty well and that’ll prepare us for Grant.”

Sprague fed off that home run as they snowballed it into their favor.  Defense had more pep in their step leading into the second run and down the stretch in the 2-1 victory.

“It totally got us going.  We knew once we took the lead, we could shut it down.  Our defense is just stellar out here.  It’s great to have a good defense and confidence on the mound and let them hit the ball wherever they want because we got a person there to cover it,” Altman said.

Eli Lowe recorded two of Sprague’s four hits as Dayton Walker had the other hit in Sprague’s seventh-straight win.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald