By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
TURNER, Ore.– It’s been nearly nine years since the last time the Cascade Baseball team has defeated North Marion.
May 13, 2016, was the last time that the Cougars had beaten the Huskies on the baseball diamond, an 8-7 victory that day in Turner. Since then, North Marion has had the Cougars number with 13 straight wins over the course of the last nine years.
When the two squads opened their Oregon West Conference series on Monday, it was a close match-up with the Huskies taking the opening game 3-2. Wednesday’s game was much of the same with a close game throughout.
North Marion picked up two runs in the top half of the first inning to lead 2-0, only to see Cascade eventually pull ahead in the bottom half of the fourth inning. The Cougars pulling ahead 4-3 starting a jockeying for the lead as North Marion pulled back ahead in the next half inning before Cascade evened things up at six in the bottom half of the sixth inning.
“We’ve been working hard and trying our best to do everything. Me and my team, we’re out here being competitive and trying to win games, that’s all,” said North Marion’s Marcos Marquez. “Playing catch, the backup is good. But we can definitely do better on that…put our minds to the next game, and that’s it. Just get the next game going.”
Marquez got the start on the hill for the Huskies, going four innings with four strikeouts before Cole Laninga took over in the fifth inning for the sophomore. The two picked up where Will Stafford left off in Game 1 and gave North Marion a chance for the lead in the top half of the seventh inning in a tied, 6-6 ballgame.
Will Herrera and Carter Condon did the same for Cascade in Game 2 on the heels of Slade Hudson going the distance in the opening game. And like Hudson did on Monday, the Cougars had a chance to pull ahead in a big league game down to their last three outs with the bats.
“We knew coming in from yesterday and losing a close one. We knew we had to come in and get everything we can. If we want to take the series, it starts today, and I felt like we did, and we got to go tomorrow and go have a great one,” Condon said.
Condon got on to start the bottom half of the seventh inning, Hans Kamm drew a walk, and now the go-ahead run was on second. Laninga and the Huskie defense got Noah Zehr to ground out for the first out, but the Condon and Kamm moved to third and second, respectively. North Marion opted to intentionally walk RG Majors in hopes of turning to double play to force extra innings.
Enter Ethan Hendricks. The junior came to the plate with the bases loaded and just needed to find a gap to win the game for his Cascade squad and avoid the double-play possibility. He and Laninga went to work. It ultimately went on to be an eight pitch battle between the two conference foes had embarked on The two worked the count to full, 3-2, but Hendricks fouled off a strikeout on the next two pitches before finding his break and putting it in play.
It would be a walk-off Grand Slam to tilt Game 2 of the series in favor of Cascade. And though they celebrate the victory when Hendricks crossed home plate, the two will meet up again Thursday in Aurora to decide who will win the three-game series between them.
“More hitting, more fielding and no errors… Monday was pretty tough, I think tonight we fixed it all,” starts Hendricks.
“That was insane. It was incredible. That’s a memory in the memory book,” Hendricks adds of the walk-off hit.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
