By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
MEDFORD, Ore.– It just wasn’t their best of days, but the Corvallis Marketmen will have another crack at it on Monday.
The Marketmen came out hot, jumping out on the Mustangs 5-0. Quinn Sissel and his defense were rolling as much as their bats were.
But then a change at pitcher, Medford going from Freeman Rountree to Jake Lewis changed the dynamics of the game moving forward.
Lewis painted the outside half of the plate in the third and had the Corvallis bats chasing. Lewis turned a quick third inning that gave Medford some breathing space going into the bottom half of the inning.
From there, Medford began chipping away and eventually took the lead going into the sixth, leading 9-5 at that point.
It was just the little things that just got in the way. The walks, Medford’s timely hits, just turned the momentum against Corvallis during the middle innings.
“Great first couple of innings, but once the walks started piling up, we gave them the momentum and they had a couple of knocks and scored some runs and momentum went their way,” said Caleb Babcock.
The Marketmen began to even out momentum in the sixth, pitching a shutout sixth inning before stringing together some hits in the top half of the seventh. Corvallis drove in two runs in the top half of the inning, but the rally was cut short as the Marketmen fell to Medford 9-7 on Sunday night.
Corvallis built some momentum however those last two innings for their game Monday when they will play Eugene for a chance to extend their season into Tuesday.
“We got to start off like we did today and limit the walks and keep the momentum going,” starts Babcock. “It starts with throwing strikes and getting the hits that we need, not getting too big and getting on base anyway possible.”
Babcock and Ben Weiss each led the Marketmen with two hits and drove in a run to lead the Corvallis offense. Babcock struck out two batters as well in two-third innings of work.
