By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
DALLAS, Ore.– After a slow start to the game with the bats, the Dallas baseball team turned things around in a big and fast way Friday against Lebanon.
The first four innings saw nothing but defense. The Dragons Bennett Cresswell and the Warriors Zane Cox anchored defensive efforts that saw the game in a 0-0 stalemate.
And that all changed in the fifth inning.
Lebanon struck first in the top half of the fifth inning when they used two Dallas errors to set up what would be two runs. Logan Taylor and Wyatt Jenkins drove in the runs for the Warriors before the Dragons held them to those runs.
Dallas responded in the bottom half of the fifth inning, scoring four runs to take the lead going into the sixth inning leading 4-2. Landon Peirce, who replaced Creswell during the Lebanon rally of the fifth inning, held the Warriors to one hit in four batters in the top half of the sixth.
That would be the last time that Dallas would take to the field for the game. That was because in the bottom half of the sixth inning, the bats really got hot as they wheeled off eight unanswered runs in the frame to end the contest in six innings.
The win itself was the Dragons sixth-straight and 11th on the season.
“We did a really good job making adjustments throughout the game. The first couple of innings, we were struggling getting the bat to the ball, then after we saw them a couple of times, we started to mesh. We’re not satisfied yet. The job’s not done until we get to State,” said Cresswell.
Their rally, it spoke volumes about how special this team is this year. Sitting at 6-1 in Mid-Willamette Conference, are tied for second with Silverton and West Albany in the league standings with the eyes on the prize of reaching the 5A State Playoffs since 2017.
“It was really good because we started pretty low. Normally, our team in the past years would crumble under that pressure of getting punched in the face. But in this year, this game, we kicked it up and started hitting the ball,” said Thomas Hess. “We’ve been hitting the ball. A lot of offseason work, in the cage, it’s helping us a lot. I think this season is going to keep going uphill because we’ve been hitting the ball like crazy.”
Hess drove in three runs and collected two hits for Dallas. Cresswell led the offense with three runs driven in and three hits while striking out three in four-and-two-third innings pitched.
Cox led the Warriors with six batters struck out in Friday’s game as the two teams will meet again Monday in Lebanon.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
