By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

AURORA, Ore.– Behind any good offense is a good defense.  Yeah, yeah it sounds like something one of those old timer baseball players would say in the first half of the 20th Century, but as the North Marion offense battled through a lull in their 9-1 victory over Madras Tuesday their defense stepped up to support their offense on Senior Night.

Dawson Schrenk, Deacon Allen and Blaine Smith all paced the Huskie defense.  Combining for five strikeouts, but letting their defense around them work to get the outs that they needed to get out of the innings as the North Marion defense permitted one hit in the seven innings that the two squads had played.

“It was great.  We had Rex (DeAngelis) on the hill yesterday and we were looking for Dawson to give us some good innings today.  With our pitchers, we always try to get them to hit bats and let our defense do our thing because we got a really solid group of guys behind our pitching,” Evan Holman said.

“(Our pitchers) were doing their jobs and that’s all that matters.  As long as we’re filling it up with strikes and making plays,” adds Emilio Estrada.

Being efficient defensively is always crucial.  Especially when you’re in Game 2 of four-straight games this week.  It saves arms yes while it keeps energy high and momentum in your favor.  As for energy, North Marion knows that they can take it up a little bit more than they played with Tuesday however.

That was because it wasn’t at the same clip as it was Monday against Estacada and yet, they want to bring that same energy to their game Wednesday at Gladstone to finish up their three-game series in the Tri-Valley Conference at 5pm.  With the Huskies taking the first two games 4-1 and 3-0 respectively, they’ll need to come out more sharply with energy in order to duplicate their success from the two match-ups from late April.

“Energy wasn’t as much as it was yesterday.  Yesterday we had a lot more energy,” Estrada said.  “As long as we have a lot of energy for tomorrow, we’ll be fine.  That’ll be the whole game honestly.  As long as we’re in that pitch and always right there, then we’ll be right there with them.”

Estrada, Holman and Cole Hammack each had an RBI in the win.  Cole Boughal had 2RBI’s and Schrenk had a game-high 3RBI’s to go with a game-high four strikeouts.  Dru Boyle had the lone hit for the White Buffaloes.  Madras host Molalla Wednesday at 4:30pm.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald