By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

MEDICAL LAKE, Wash.–  It took the Dutch to kick in for the Withnell Dodger bats in Sunday morning’s breakfast game game against Saskatoon in the 2022 Wood Bat Classic at Medical Lake High School.

The Diamondbacks from Canada held a 1-0 lead following a two-out triple in the bottom half of the inning.  It was just one of two runs permitted by the Dodger Trio of Grant Strother (Sprague), Brody McMullen (West Salem) and Isaiah Sullivan (Salem Academy) in the 8-2 Withnell win as their defense held strong in the opening two innings of the game.

“It helped a lot.  Our defense was just staying on top.  The first inning was rough and then from then on our defense led into our offense and we just strung along a lot of things together, which  created the energy to keep going throughout the game,” Sprague’s Eli Lowe said.

The Dodgers would go on to score four runs in the top half of the third inning of Sunday’s game.  All came with two outs starting with Will Hassoun’s (Sprague) 2RBI single, a score off an error and a Avery Wilson (Sprague) single.

McMullen came in for Strother, who went two innings with four strikeouts, and surrendered a run.  It would be the only run allowed by the Titan arm, who went two innings himself with three strikeouts, and was the final run allowed by the Dodger defense.

Withnell scored four runs over the course of the next two innings to pull away in the 8-2 victory and finished their Spokane Trip 4-1.  

“This tournament has been awesome, the bats have been going really well.  Which is good because recently we’ve scored barely any runs and now it’s picking up, we’re heating up going into this final stretch of league games coming up.  So it’s good,” Hassoun said.

Hassoun led the offense with 3RBI’s, Lowe contributed another 2RBI’s in the win.  Withnell, who scored 29 runs going back to June 23 against Idaho Falls in Medford, scored 49 runs over the last three days in Spokane as they head back to play Post 20 in Area-3 action Tuesday.

“We’re stringing a lot of things together, barreling a lot of balls and it’s feeling really good.  The energy is staying high, all the guys are in a good spot,” Lowe said.  “I think going into league this week is going to be a really good place for us to continue league.”

The Dodgers host the Dirtbags Wednesday for a 5pm game before heading to Central Thursday for a doubleheader starting at 2pm.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald