By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
ALBANY, Ore.– The Silverton Baseball team came ready to play on Monday evening down at West Albany High School.
Their defense was spot on. They stayed in front of the ball, they made the plays when they needed to and limited the Bulldogs to one-hit and just two runs that West Albany picked up through a wild pitch in the third inning and a sac-fly in the sixth in the Mid-Willamette Conference contest.
James Collier and Henry Briggs were the two Silverton pitchers who anchored the one-hitter. Collier went five innings, striking out six batters with Briggs coming in for the final two innings while striking out two more batters.
“We had that mentality of ‘win or go home’ and we really brought it out today and we just really clicked on both sides of the ball. We came together and had a great day,” said Collier.
“It was great, it was the first time that we came in with that rotation and it just worked perfectly. The guys adjusted perfectly to what they had to do to help the team out. I had all the confidence in the world with all the guys behind me,” adds Briggs.
Briggs helped the offense with three hits and drove in three runs. Trey Carstensen also had three hits and drove in three runs for Silverton with Collier also driving in three runs in the Foxes 15-2 victory over the Bulldogs on this day.
“It was just staying on our approach that our coaches set out for us. Hunting fast-balls and trying to do damage with every single one,” Briggs said of the approach.
The two teams will meet again on Wednesday at Silverton High School for the MWC finale and it starts with the same mentality that they had on Monday.
“We just got to keep the energy high and we got to defend our home. We have to keep the mentality that it’s not over yet. We ten-runned them today, it doesn’t mean we’ll ten-run them on Wednesday. So we need to keep working and we need to bring the energy,” said Collier.
Blake Linton had the lone hit for West Albany. The hit came in the bottom half of the seventh inning to break up the no-hit bid that the Foxes had going on.
First pitch on Wednesday is at 5pm in Silverton.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
