By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SILVERTON, Ore.–  Silverton’s Sawyer Enderle had one of those incredible days in which he filled up the statline like he was Shohei Ohtani in the Foxes doubleheader with Mid-Willamette Conference opposition South Albany Friday.

Game one he dueled with the Redhawks Gaje Nicholson, both going at least five innings in the 3-1 first game that saw Silverotn came to life late.  Nicholson going five-and-a-third with five strikeouts with Enderle going six with six strikeouts as it took until the sixth until the Foxes timed out the Redhawks junior to set up Carson Waples’ save in the seventh.

Enderle continued his ways via the bat in Game 2, hitting two home runs and driving in five of Silverton’s first eight runs with the squad leading 8-2 going into the bottom half of the fifth inning.  The Foxes were the away team in Game 2 of the doubleheader after serving as the home team in the first game of the day.

“It’s huge getting that momentum going and hitting the ball really well does that for our team.  It gets our momentum going, I feel like that’s what really helped,” Enderle said of the hot streak the squad was on.  “We then got into our heads thinking, ‘this is going to be easy.  We’re up 8-2’ and we got into our heads that we don’t have to keep trying.  We got lazy and it didn’t help.  But I think from now on, we should keep our momentum up, our energy up and I think we should continue putting up five-plus runs in that game.”

Baseball can humble a team, can surprise you and can be weird once it occurs.  And just as Silverotn began to feel comfortable with their lead, South Albany began to chip away at the lead.

Three runs in the fifth made it a 8-5 game.  The Foxes got a run back only to see the Redhawks gain ground with a two-run sixth inning.  Jaden Pang pitched a shutout inning in the seventh, one of the two-and-two-third innings the senior pitched, allowing South Albany to have a shot at winning the game in the bottom half of the seventh.

Their three-up and down inning in the second on the heels of surrendering a four-run first inning seemed to be the spark that the Redhawks needed and slowly built upon for the remainder of the game.

“Ever since then we were talking it up, chattering and we weren’t losing that energy, we were keeping it through.  We kept going the whole game and it was amazing,” said South Albany’s Keegan Turcott. “Keep the energy going, keep the bats going because we got the bats going today, so that’s always good.    We got so many hits, so many people on base.  We left a lot of people on base…just less strikeouts.  See ball, hit ball and be confident.  That’s about it.”

Turcott’s big moment came in the frame.  The ‘Hawks got their first two batters on, eventually seeing them score off an error at third that tied the game at nine.  Ground-out, strikeout followed going into Turcott’s at-bat where he forced a dropped third strike with Eli Henkel at third.  Henkel stormed home for the win as Turcott looked to beat the throw at first, something that the senior did to cap-off the comeback for South Albany.

The Redhawks will head home Monday to play host to Dallas while Silverton heads to West Albany on Monday.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald