By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– It took a moment for the Sprague baseball team to get going back in the right direction, but when they did, they were clicking.
Down 4-0 to Southridge Thursday evening going into the bottom half of the third inning, the Olympians climbed back into the game.
It started small. Driving in one run in the bottom half of the third inning by way of Riley Wilson and an RBI Single that scored Andrew Mhoon. Their defense hung their first zero of the game, allowing their offense to turn on the bats in the bottom half of the fourth inning. They put the ball in play, with four hits and forcing two errors and drawing a walk, Sprague turned what was a 4-1 deficit into an 8-4 lead by inning’s end.
“It was big. We’ve played with a lead a lot this year, so it’s good to know that we can come back from behind and do it when we don’t have the best start,” said Wilson, who drove in three runs and had two hits. “We just got to play with a lot of confidence and knowing that we can compete with anybody.”
Those four runs that they surrendered in the opening two innings proved to be the only runs that Sprague would allow in the non-league game on Thursday. Their offense would support them once more in the bottom half of the fifth inning by tacking on a run that made it 9-4 going into the sixth, giving them just enough of a cushion for the victory and going into next week’s Central Valley Conference game with South Salem.
“We just bounced off of the West Salem series. We’ve had the momentum. We’ve had three practices that are pretty strong, and we just kept the barrels going and had momentum,” said Cameron VanKempen. “We’ve been grinding every single day, and we’re just looking forward to the South series and trying to get them to lose their first game.”
VanKempen had a team-high three hits for Sprague. Avery Lohrman, with four strikeouts and Jaxson Redel with five strikeouts, combined for nine strikeouts in the game as the Olys open their series with South on Tuesday at Gilmore Field.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
