The Puget Sound Logger baseball team travelled to McMinnville, Ore. to take on the nation’s seventh ranked team, the Linfield Wildcats. The Loggers got a huge victory in the opening game but eventually fell to the Wildcats as Linfield took two of three games in the series.
In the first game of the series two of the Northwest Conference’s premier pitchers squared off when Logger sophomore Matt Robinson (Lafayette, Calif.) clashed with Ryan Larson of the Wildcats.
When it was all said and done Robinson came out ahead after allowing 10 hits over 7.1 innings and giving up just one earned run to push his record on the season to 5-1. Senior Cam Duvall (Lakewood, Wash.) closed the game, earning his third save of the season as the Loggers picked up the 7-4 victory.
Trailing 2-1 in the top of the eighth inning, the Logger bats awoke to the tune of six runs on four hits. The team tied the game at 2-2 on an RBI double by junior Matt Cox (Salem, Ore.). Senior Chaz Kramer (Boulder, Colo.) followed up with a sacrifice fly to score Cox and give the Loggers their first lead of the game at 3-2. Junior Andrew Grady (Cave Creek, Ariz.) and senior Dakota Resnik (Bellevue, Wash.) each added a two-RBI single before the inning was over, giving the Loggers a five run cushion heading into the bottom half of the eighth.
The Wildcats were able to muster two more runs before the game’s conclusion but it wasn’t enough as the Loggers emerged victorious from their first true challenge of the NWC season.
In the day’s second game the Wildcats came out and jumped on the Loggers early and built themselves a 12-2 lead after three innings that proved too much to overcome.
The Loggers took the initial 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning when junior Casey Coberly (Boise, Idaho) knocked in Cox with an RBI double. Coberly scored the Loggers’ second run on an RBI single by Kramer. After this initial burst, the Wildcats shut the Loggers down until the seventh inning, at which point it was too little too late.
Linfield scored all twelve of their runs in the first three innings, including a combined 11 runs in the second and third innings.
In the second inning they posted four runs on three hits. One run came on a rare base-running play in which Danny Urness managed to steal home. In the third the Wildcats really blew the doors off the game as they scored seven runs on eight hits. They slapped singles and doubles around the diamond and were aided by a Logger error to open up the 12-2 lead.
Freshman Addison Melzer (Portland, Ore.) led the Logger offense with two doubles in four at-bats and two RBIs. Cox, Coberly, Kramer and junior Will Mentor (Seattle, Wash.) each added an RBI. Junior Taylor Volz (Portland, Ore.) took the loss on the mound.
The series resumed on Sunday with each team looking to claim the deciding third game. The Wildcats made their move early, scoring seven runs in the first two innings. Four of the seven runs were unearned as the Loggers aided the hot hitting Wildcats by committing two early errors.
Puget Sound had plenty of chances to make their way back into the game; they had at least one man on base in every inning except the fifth. Unfortunately the team left 12 runners on base by the time it was all said and done. Kramer scored the lone run on an RBI single from Mentor in the eighth inning. They fell by a final score of 9-1.
“We are obviously disappointed that we did not win the series but the positive thing is that we are one of a few teams that is still in the hunt for a league title. We missed a big opportunity to take control of the league but we can only look forward to the rest of the year because we still have a league title opportunity in front of us,” Cox said.
“We really only showed up for one of the three games and against good teams like that you have to bring it every game. The rest of the year we cannot afford anymore slip ups like those that we had against Linfield,” he continued.
The Loggers dropped to second place in the NWC standings behind Linfield. They will look to keep pace with the Wildcats when they host third place George Fox this weekend.