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Familiar face fills in for Tigers while
Baumholtz is away
Tigers see ups and down at team camp in
Eugene
CR Woods takes third in Canby tournament
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Abby's plays best game of season in win |
Abby's rallies from a one-run deficit Monday to
defeat Liberty 10-7 on the road |
By B. Scott Anderson, Newberg
Graphic sports editor
E-mail Scott at banderson@eaglenewspapers.com
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Maybe
all the Abby’s American Legion baseball team needed was a little
fire.
The Tigers got it Monday.
Prior to the game at Liberty High School, two players were involved
in what Abby’s assistant coach Casey Thomas called “adversity.” That
somehow fired the group up and Abby’s played it’s
best game of the season, scoring six runs in the first two innings
to earn a 10-7 victory over the Falcons.
“I can’t explain how happy I am for (the team),” said Thomas, who
took over the Tigers while Frank Baumholtz was out of town. “It was
an issue between two guys and what was great was that we didn’t let
that effect us. We came out in the first two innings and scored six
runs and we haven’t put six runs in two innings on the board all
year, let alone the whole game.”
After a single run in the first inning, Abby’s exploded in
the second for five runs. Jordan Guedon hit a two-RBI double to left
field before Jordan Burger took the first pitch
over the right field wall for a three-run homer.
Up 6-0, Abby’s saw Liberty chip away at its lead. Down 6-2 at the
start of the bottom of the fourth inning, Liberty
scored five runs and seized a 7-6 advantage. Abby’s Marc Hillman
gave up three hits and two walks in the inning while the defense
committed two errors to help Liberty. With two outs Chance Howard
came in in relief and shut the door on Liberty in the inning.
Howard stymied the Falcons the rest of the way by giving up one hit
and striking out four in two innings of work.
“Chance Howard had an unbelievable performance on the mound,” Thomas
said. “I can’t say enough about that.”
But the Tigers were still down by a run and hadn’t produced
anything offensively since the second inning. In the top of the
fifth inning, Abby’s got its offense in gear. With two outs, Chris
Anderson and Matt Dixon were hit by pitches. On a Grady Winder bunt
the Falcons committed an error, which allowed Anderson to score to
tie the game. The next batter, Todd Siler, blasted a two-RBI single
up the middle to put Abby’s back in front of the Falcons, 9-7.
Abby’s added a run in the top of the seventh when Dixon drilled the
first pitch to left-center field for a solo home run.
“We’ve been talking about being aggressive offensively and sitting
‘dead-red,’” Thomas said. “We’ve been telling them to look for the
fastball and jump all over it because we’re not the kind of team
that can battle out of an 0-2 count on a curveball. All year we’ve
struggled with that and so for our guys to come and be aggressive
offensively and put 10 runs on the board is just amazing.”
Winder, the leadoff hitter for the Tigers, went 4-for-4 on the day.
“He’s a great player,” Thomas said. “He’s got speed and you can’t
teach speed. He’s one of those guys where you can tell him to drag
bunt every time and he’ll get on or he’ll find a way to get on.”
But it was the performance of several players — Burger (who also
had a triple in the game), Siler, Dixon and Winder — who overcame
slumps in the win.
“The thing about all of those guys is that they’ve all had to deal
with adversity this year and they let it get the better of them, but
finally today they came out and battled through it,” Thomas said.
The win was especially timely after the Tigers were swept by the
Eugene Challengers during the weekend in a doubleheader, Thomas
said.
“We just flat didn’t have the pitching,” he said.
The Tigers return to action at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Corvallis High
School against Richie’s Market in a Fourth of July tournament. Last
year’s Richie’s Market squad went to their age-group World Series.
“They’re going to be good,” Thomas said. “They’ve got a lot of guys
that can compete. We’re going to need to play well against them
because they’re going to be good.” |
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From
June 30,
2004, Newberg Graphic
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