By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– All nine runs by the South Salem baseball team Tuesday evening came way off home runs. Five of them. And each home run came away with two outs.
The Saxons won the Central Valley Conference game against Sprague 9-8 at Gilmore Park in a game in which South Salem was once down 7-2 going into the bottom half of the fourth inning. So yeah, as a rarity as the feat was to hit five over the outfield fence, the Saxons kinda needed every single one of them to stay undefeated against their rival on this day.
“That’s what we do. We hit bombs. We got top to the bottom in the lineup. We can hit it out. We’re all threats when we’re at the plate, and we’re threats on the bases, too. We’ll take a bunch of bombs all day. Let’s go,” said South Salem’s Sawyer Nelson.
Nelson himself hit three of the home runs, Teagan Scott and Gavin Price each had one for a South Salem squad that didn’t take the lead until the bottom half of the sixth inning.
That was because the Saxons rival in the Olympians came out firing at all cylinders to open the three-game series.
Sprague jumped out to a 3-0 lead going into the bottom half of the third inning where Scott and Nelson went yard back-to-back times. Solo Home Runs that drew South Salem back to within one of the Olys at 3-2 going to the fourth inning.
Sprague pushed back ahead, scoring four times in the top half of the fourth inning. They led 7-2 going into the bottom half of the inning, with Boyd Messman scoring three off a home run of his own. Grant Moyer scored the other run off a double that drove Jace Dalton home, Dalton drew a walk after Messman’s home run.
That hot start was important knowing the offensively potential by South Salem. It is something that Sprague hopes to continue into Wednesday’s and Friday’s games with the Saxons.
“It was a hot start, and that’s what we wanted going into it. We wanted to get that lead early because we knew that they hadn’t played down a lot. We got the lead, did what we had to do, and they put the ball in play,” said Messman. “That’s baseball. I wouldn’t change a thing, I thought we played really good defense, and I thought we put the ball in play against one of the better pitchers in the State in Harrison (Buckingham). As long as we keep doing it the next couple of games, I think there’s a pretty good chance we can a few wins more forward.”
Put the ball in play, and good things will happen. Sprague did that in the opening half of the game. The Saxons did the same in the baco half of the game.
South Salem scored three runs in the bottom half of the fourth inning to make it a 7-5 ball game and limited the Olympian offense to one run over the final three innings. That last Sprague run is coming across home plate in the top half of the sixth inning.
But down 8-5 going into the bottom half of the sixth, the Saxons showed that they had one more spurt left in them.
With two outs on the board, that’s where South Salem’s magic came to play once more. Scott drew a single, Nelson hit his third home run of the game.
The cycle restarted from there. Noah Scharer was hit by a pitch to only see Price hit the Saxons fifth home run of the game. It was that two-run home run that gave South Salem their first lead of the game lead 9-8.
“We’ve been playing games that haven’t been competitive pretty much all season, so it was really fun to have a dogfight game,” said Nelson. “I love that, I love that kind of energy. Chipping both ways. It was a great game and really fun.”
Kevin Semm, who came in for relief for Buckingham in the sixth inning, closed out the victory to help the Saxons remain undefeated on the year and in CVC play.
The two squads meet up again on Wednesday at Sprague before coming back to Gilmore Park in Friday.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
