Sweet Home couldn’t get much going early in their play-in outing at Astoria on Friday, while Astoria steadily put numbers on the scoreboard to defeat the Huskies 7-2.
The Huskies, 7-8 in league and 13-11 overall, defeated Junction City twice to earn a fourth-place finish in the Sky-Em League and a play-in game against Astoria, ranked 14th by the Oregon Student Activities Association and third place in the Cowapa League with an 8-7 league record and 15-11 overall record.
“Their guy just pitches a pretty good game, and we didn’t hit the ball,” said Coach Dan Tow. “Both our pitchers pitched fairly well. We had a couple of errors.”
And when the Huskies made mistakes, Astoria capitalized, Tow said. “The bottom line, their guy pitched really well and got some big outs.”
The Huskies were scoreless until the seventh inning, trailing 7-0. Then the Huskies scored a pair of runs.
Several of those Astoria runs were unearned, Tow said.
“They scored more than they should have,” Tow said. “If we could’ve kept it closer, it could’ve been more interesting (in the final inning).”
“It’s certainly disappointing to lose. It’s no fun to lose, but considering the year we had, I thought our kids were a pretty good team. But we didn’t choke.”
The team was focused all week, Tow said. “We had a great week of practice, one of the best of the year.”
This team has always been laid back, Tow said. “We challenged them to be more serious, and they were. I certainly didn’t feel like we went out there and just choked. Astoria was the better team that day.”
It’s also a team well the Huskies could have beaten, he said, but “they’re a good baseball team.”
That’s something the Huskies saw all season long.
“Other than maybe a game or two in California, every game we played in our league could have gone the other way,” Tow said. “We won some tough ones, and we lost some tough ones.”
Tow said he felt good about how the Huskies won their games against Junction City to get into the play-in game.
Opening the game, pitcher Daniel Virtue struck out, and Jake Long hit a fly out. Justin Tow walked, and Brandon Keenon moved him to third on a single, but Keenon was forced out at second base on a fielder’s choice on a shot by Keanu Aiona.
Astoria put a runner on first and second on a pair of walks and a fielder’s choice, but Fighting Fishermen couldn’t score until the second inning. The Huskies were three up, three down in the second. Astoria scored two runners on a triple by Kyle Strange.
Astoria scored another run in the third and three more in the fourth. The Fishermen went scoreless in the fifth and scored one more in the sixth inning.
The Huskies scored twice in the final inning, with one out. Aiona singled and stole second. He advanced to third when Devin Stafford reached base on an error. Kobe Olson reached base when a fielder overthrew second base, scoring Aiona and advancing Stafford to second. Desmond Ely reached base on a fielder’s choice, scoring Stafford and forcing Olson out at second. Austin James walked, moving Ely to second, but Virtue hit a fly out to end the game.
Collecting hits in the game were Jake Long, Keenon and Aiona. Olson had an RBI.
Onm the mound, Virtue gave up five hits, two walks and four runs, one of them earned. Stafford took over in the fourth inning, giving up four hits, two walks and three runs, two of them earned. He struck out two Astoria batters.
For Astoria, Fridtjof Fremstad struck out six Huskies and gave up one walk and three hits. Carter Wallace relieved him in the seventh inning. At bat, Olaf England led Astoria, going 3-4.