Berries Fall In Playoff Debut 4-3

By Jeremy McDonald

Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.– For quite possibly the last time this Summer on their home field, the Marion Berries put on for the City.
It was a packed house, more so than when the Berries took to Chemeketa on June 23. 1,987 fans, to be exact, were in attendance, and for good reason.
It was the first time ever that the Marion Berries were in the playoffs and all in their inaugural season. But that was the plan all along when they took to the diamond a few weeks ago.
To get to this point.
They hosted the Portland Pickles on Friday night at Chemeketa Community College to open the Best-of-3 series, think of it as a Divisional Series to get to the Conference Semi’s.
Sprague and Chemeketa-grad Taylor Brenneman talked about excitement before the game for this moment. The magnitude of the moment and especially with it being his last game on the field he’s called home for the last two years.
“This game… you couldn’t ask for anything more. We were going up against the best team in the West Coast League right now. The environment was great, Salem came out today. You can’t beat the environment. It was electric. It was back-and-forth, tight the whole time, good baseball. It was a great night, I’m really grateful,” said Brenneman, who started in Left Field for the Berries.
The Berries jumped out to a 1-0 lead going into the third inning. Will Stickney (USC) legged out a triple and was later driven home by Nick Holm to hand the Marion Berries a 1-0 lead.
The Pickles scored twice in the Top half of the third to take a 2-1 lead on the Berries and for the next three innings, the score held true at 2-1 as Grayson Bonanno handed things off to Jack Meek in the top half of the sixth inning. It bought the Berries’ bats some time to come around.
And eventually the Marion Berries did manage to get back on the board. Starting in the sixth inning, the Berries struck again. Starting with singles by Andrew Mhoon and Holm, the Berries set themselves up for a two-run sixth run inning to retake the lead, 3-2.
With every run scored, and the Timmy Trumpet starts playing, the hometown faithful got a little bit louder knowing that their boys, the new kids on the block, were giving themselves a chance against one of the West Coast League’s primer squads.
“Our goal from Day One was to make it to the playoffs and the first game that we were actually here. It was all that we wanted. We were all fired up, with a lot of energy and a big crowd,” said Mhoon. “We really wanted to win it for them. To fall short, it hurts, but we played hard and to show that we were able to compete as a first-year team against the best team in the West Coast League…the Berries are here and we’re going to compete tomorrow and hopefully on Sunday and next year make another run at the playoffs.”
The Pickles pulled back ahead. First, with a Josh Schleichardt solo Home Run that tied it at three before a run in the ninth inning gave Portland a 4-3 lead going to the bottom of the ninth.
Despite the deficit, the Berries rallied. They got the tying and winning run on with 2 outs in the bottom half of the ninth inning.
The Pickles got out of the jam, converting on a dropped third strike for an out to close out the first game of the series 4-3.
The result left the Marion Berries heartbroken. Sad. Angry perhaps knowing that they were right there. They wanted this game for the City of Salem. The City who turned out for them game in and out all Summer and accepted them as one of their own.
But.
They got a possibility of two more this weekend to extend their season beyond the series as they look to use this pain as fuel starting on Saturday.
“It was huge being able to hang with them. Everything was kind of against us going into it being a first-year team, lost a bunch of players, but we just kind of came through and were able to play our asses off and grind, be gritty and hopefully we can go get one tomorrow,” said Brenneman.
“This game shows that we can compete. One or two things didn’t go our way, but we played hard, and we were right there until the end of the game. We can beat this team,” Mhoon adds.
Mhoon and Stickney each led the Berries with two hits each, Holm led the squad with two runs driven in. Meek led the Berries defense with four strikeouts in an inning-and-a-third pitching.