By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  Sprague had turned the heat on West Salem after an interesting start to Wednesday’s three-game series with the Titans, turning a 2-2 game going into the third inning into an eventual 15-3 win in five innings.

And for much of the game, the first four innings until a rain-delay late into the fourth inning, West Salem was in this game.  Trailing the Olympians 6-2 as Sprague tried to pull away before a downpour started.

“Great pitching, throwing strikes.  Defense was playing well there.  This game is a good learning spot for us, we’ll see what our guys can do on the field.  Just flush it, you know, baseball…you got to have a short memory and be ready for the next one,” West Salem’s Tyler Lockhart said.

It’ll be a task for the two squads the next two days, three total to rebound from the previous day’s game and be ready to go.  For Sprague, they were able to stay mentally with it during the rain delay, coming out of it to see Grant Strother finish the fourth inning on two pitches.  Feeding off that little spark, the Olys were able to build and onto their lead. 

By inning’s end, nine runs were scored on eight hits, a walk and two errors that turned a relatively close game into a double-digit lead for a traveling Olys squad that started a four-day, four-game stretch.

“It felt really good, just strung it together.  Got a couple of hits here-and-there, a lot of things started to fall into place and then we go out to the bottom of the fifth and shut it out and moved onto tomorrow,” Sprague’s Eli Lowe said.  “The win today was really important, but it’s over now and it’s onto the next one.  It doesn’t matter what happens Friday and Saturday, we’re onto Thursday.  After Thursday, we’ll go into Friday and keep going one game at a time.  Not caring about the one in the future, but the one at play.”

West Salem loaded up the bases in the bottom half of the fifth inning, getting a run across off a Trey Ward walk with one out before the Olympians shut the door with Hayden Laudette coming in to relieve for the final two batters and outs.

Lockhart led the Titans with two hits and Ward had the lone RBI.  Strother struck out nine in four-and-a-third innings.  Taylor Brenneman went 3-for-4 with 3RBI’s and Lowe also collected three hits to go with 2RBI’s.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald