By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–   This game was one of those games that had it all for Sprague to work through.  

The bats were on fire, jumping out to a 7-0 lead going into the fourth inning against Tualatin.  Adversity as they witnessed the Timberwolves march back into the game, scoring two runs in the fifth and three in the sixth to cut the Olympian lead to two going into the bottom half of the sixth.

Sprague got the clutch hits that included a Eli Lowe solo shot, the Olympians second home run of the game as Andrew Mhoon had a solo shot himself in the bottom of the third, as well as a clutch stop defensively in the top half of the seventh to close out their 8-5 win in the non-league match-up.  Capping a week that saw Sprague win four games in four days, improving to 13-4 on the year.

“It was really good and I think it’ll be good for our future.  We knew it was going to be a hard game, we didn’t have a lot of pitching left coming off of three-straight games with West Salem so we didn’t have much left.  But we scratched and clawed with everything we could and we came out on the right side of it,” Lowe said of the win.

“They came out in the fifth and sixth, putting up two-runs, three-runs…so I came in and tried to stop them and put a hold and let our offense score some runs then shut the door on them at the end of the game,” adds Taylor Brenneman.

Brenneman came in at the start of the sixth with momentum coming at him like a freight train.  But he and the Olympian defense weathered the storm in that frame and settled down for their final half-inning soon after.  Closing out a long week with a hard-fought win.

“It’s been a long week, it’s the fourth day in a row we’ve played.  We had to come out, we didn’t have any of our…we had four starters out, so we had to come out and really grind for this one and keep the bats hot, play good defense and try our best on the mound,” Brenneman said.  “We’re pretty set up.  We have really good pitching depth and if we can beat teams without our main starters, it proves that we can keep our bats hot and play good baseball.  I think that’ll prepare us for the playoffs.”

Lowe finished the game going 3-for-4 with an RBI, Brenneman struck out three in two innings and Henry Mhoon led Sprague with 2RBI’s.  Isaac Pfeifer led Tualatin going 3-for-4 with 2RBI’s.  Pfeifer and Cooper Newton each hit a home run for the Timberwolves

Photos By Jeremy McDonald