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Abby's finishes 3-1 in Bend tourney
Lacrosse in Newberg? Introduction to the game
begins Monday
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Case closed: Tigers triumph in the eighth |
The Abby's baseball team concludes the regular
season Monday with a comeback victory |
By B. Scott Anderson, Newberg
Graphic sports editor
E-mail Scott at banderson@eaglenewspapers.com
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Brett Case kept his streak intact
Monday.
With the game tied, Case hit an RBI single to left field to score
Ryan Wilson from second giving the Abby’s American Legion AAA
baseball team a 7-6 win against Century in eight innings.
For Case, his final at-bat was the latest case of him coming
through with a game on the line. Since Case was in the sixth grade,
he’s delivered the game-winning hit in at least one game every
season.
“I
couldn’t have done it without Ryan Wilson, though,” he said of his
final hit. “It’s a testament to his speed.”
The Tigers (17-14) were doing everything right in the game but
couldn’t overtake the Jaguars. The Tigers held the Jaguars to four
hits (Abby’s had 10) and Abby’s starter Nick Reynolds had 11
strikeouts, five walks and one hit batter. Reynolds gave up three
hits, but one was crucial.
In the top of the third, Reynolds issued a walk before an error by
Mitchell Sturdevant at first base gave Century two runners on base
with no outs. The following batter, L.J. Hammer, delivered the
crushing shot, a three-run home run to right field that gave the
Jaguars a 4-1 lead.
“That’s baseball, though, and that happens,” Abby’s coach Frank
Baumholtz said. “The great part about us is that we’ve been getting
better as the year has gone on. We just keep hanging and scratching
back.”
The Tigers did just that. Matt Twenge hit an RBI double to left
field in the third before Wilson’s RBI single to right field in the
fourth. After a Century run in the fifth gave the Jaguars a 5-3
lead, Reynolds, who tripled to right field with two outs, scored on
a wild pitch.
The Tigers tied the game in the bottom of the seventh to send the
game into extra innings. Case started out the inning with single up
the middle. Taylor Burrows, who came in the game as a pinch runner
for Case, stole second and then took third base on an error.
Sturdevant did the rest, hitting a sacrifice RBI to shallow right
field.
Century scored a go-ahead run in the eighth off Sturdevant, before
Abby’s crucial bottom half of the inning. Spencer Hales led the
inning off with a double to left field before Wilson’s game-tying
RBI single to shallow right. Case’s line drive single gave the
Tigers the victory.
“That shows a lot about our development over the summer,” Baumholtz
said of the win. “It feels pretty good to continue putting some
things together.”
The victory proved to be the fourth in a row for the Tigers, who
came off a four-day tournament in Bend during the weekend. With the
last game of the regular season complete, Abby’s finished at 3-5 in
the league, possibly in a three-way tie for eighth place (final
standings were unavailable Tuesday). The Tigers will start the best
two-of-three series against a to-be-determined team either today
(Wednesday) or Thursday.
Case said a win such as Monday’s was critical for the Tigers.
“It’s a really big ego booster for us,” he said. “We start the
playoffs (this week), so we’re going to go in with an intense
victory like that and that will put us in a good place.” |
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From
July 18, 2007, Newberg Graphic
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