By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– The fifth inning was Blanchet’s breakthrough inning in their 6-4 victory over Tillamook on Tuesday afternoon at home.
It started with a walk, then a single to get base runners on. That got the ball rolling, but it was the back-to-back RBI singles by Callum Harrington and Cash Woodard that got momentum into their favor.
Blanchet led 3-2 at this point with no outs and from there, the Cavaliers built up a lead. Blanchet loaded up the bases, Sam Mosar drew a bases loaded walk that made it 4-2 Cavs. Evan Hancock drove in another run and Henry Wort added another RBI single to get Blanchet ahead 6-2 by the end of the inning.
“That was our breakthrough right there. It was really good to watch, it felt good. That’s what we got to do, put runs on the board and do a job,” said Hancock, who finished the day with 2RBI’s.
It wasn’t the prettiest of wins, but a win is a win for Blanchet.
From last year’s 3A State Championship winning squad, the Cavaliers graduated six starters from the diamond. They’re an inexperienced squad in some sense, a new team for sure, but they have potential to be something special once they get adjusted to their new positions, new leadership voices and the way of life at the Varsity level together as a team.
The bats started off slow. Not really getting going until that fifth inning, but finished with seven hits on the day. Their defense backed their pitching, committing one error as Hancock and Nate Rauch got their first real taste of Varsity pitching, and pressure pitching too, down the stretch in the game.
“It’s coming to a different team, last year we had a lot of leaders. We had six seniors starting, so a completely different team with different guys leading the younger guys out there, it’s really good to come out here and get those reps. We had Cash, the first hit that we had, that RBI single, that was huge for us,” said Wort. “We had Nate and Evan, who haven’t pitched that much on Varsity and they came up and threw strikes. All we need is strikes. We’re not trying to throw hard, we’re not trying to do anything tricky, but pitching first. If they put the ball in the zone, we’ll make plays and have those guys…our outfielders were really solid today, and the infield made some plays. We got some things to ocean up, but we’ll work on that.
“Just focusing on the defensive baserunning. We got the hitting down, we’re good with that, but just making sure we’re doing the little things right and building off of this win is a good base for us.”
Tillamook drove in two runs in the top half of the sixth inning and were able to keep Blanchet off the board in the bottom half of that inning. But Hancock, who came in during the fifth inning, was able to turn a quick top half of the seventh inning to close out the victory.
Wort started the game on the hill, going two innings with four strikeouts and allowing one hit. Wort also drove in a run as he, Hancock, Woodard and Mosar all drove in runs in the victory as Blanchet will turn their focus to Marist on Thursday afternoon.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
