By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SPRINGFIELD, Ore.– The hard work that Salde Hudson put in to be able to go a full seven innings this past offseason had paid off Thursday afternoon to close out the Springfield Tournament.
The Cougar junior went the distance, and with the help of his defense, held a Warriors to two runs and two hits witg Hudson striking out 11 in the process in a rematch with Lebanon.
“Just the whole winter I’ve been working on getting those pitch counts up and being able to help out the team like I did today was amazing. Keeping us ahead and keeping the momentum flowing,” Hudson said.
Cascade led 2-0 through the first four innings before the bats came alive in the fifth inning.
After starting the frame with back-to-back singles by Cole Drager and Hans Kamm, the Cougars hit the first of two triples in the inning by way of Ethan Hendricks that made it 4-0 Cascade. RG Majors hit the other triple, bringing Hendricks home and made it 5-0. A Carter Condon sacrifice hit made it 6-0 Cascade before it all all said and done.
“It was pretty good, it gave us some momentum going into the next couple of innings and it helped out on the defensive side as well,” said Kamm of the inning. “I felt like the bats were a lot better today, they were a lot better than yesterday and it helped a lot.”
Kamm led the offense with three hits, Hendricks had two hits and Majors led the Cascade offense with two runs driven in.
Lebanon scored twice in the bottom half of the sixth inning, but the Cougars kept them to just to those two runs through the last out to hand the Warriors their fist defeat of the season.
Cascade, who sits 2-2 on the year, will host Seaside on Monday.
