After losing to the Sky-Em’s leader, the Huskies defeated Sutherlin twice to clinch second place in the Sky-Em in baseball.
“We’re still in second place,” Coach Dan Tow said. With the win Friday night, the Huskies clinched a second-place finish in the league.
The Huskies are 9-4, behind Sisters, 11-2, and ahead of Elmira, 7-6. Cottage Grove, 6-7, is in fourth place, followed by Junction City, 5-8, and Sutherlin, 1-12. If the Huskies lose twice to Cottage Grove this week, they would still remain in second because they defeated Elmira in two of three games.
“We’re played well, and we’ve won a lot this year,” Tow said. “We’d love to have gotten Sisters at least one time, but the kids have really done a good job.”
The Huskies will host a play-in game against the third-place team from another league. They’ll need to win to move into the regular playoff rounds.
“I don’t look ahead too much,” Tow said, but it’s nice to know at this point that number two is locked up.
“We can think about resting pitchers’ arms if they’re tired,” he said.
After a 19-12 loss to Sisters on May 4, the Huskies held on for a 6-5 win at Sutherlin on May 6 and then dominated Sutherlin 17-2 at home on May 8.
The team saw great hitting in both games, 28 combined, Tow said; and pitching was good in both games, Ashcraft on Wednesday and Virtue on Friday. Seiber came in at the end of the first game to end it with a strikeout, and then three up, three down the last inning on Friday.
“The first one was slow,” said Tow. “We ended up 6-5.”
The Huskies started the seventh inning in the lead 6-2 and then gave up some runs, enough to make them nervous, Tow said.
The Huskies and Sutherlin each scored a run in the second inning; but trailing at the end of the third 2-1, the Huskies broke things open in the fourth to score five and seal their win.
At bat, Hunter Jutte and Brandon Keenon each went 3-4, Jutte with a run and Keenon with a homerun.
Cole Ashcraft collected two hits, with two RBIs and a run.
Hitting once were Brett Blachly, with two RBIs; Justin Tow; Kevin Seiber; and Colyn Van Eck, with a double.
Ashcraft pitched 6 innings two earn the win, giving up two earned runs, seven hits and six walks. He struck out six. Seiber pitched the last two outs, striking out one batter and earning the save.
On Friday at home, the Huskies defeated Sutherlin under the 10-run rule in five innings.
The Huskies scored a run in the first to get things going and then delivered a crushing 10-run second inning. Sutherlin was able to score a single run each in the second and third innings.
Every Husky hit the ball Friday, with Desmond Ely leading the way going 3-4 with two runs, an RBI and three doubles. Overall, the team hit eight doubles.
Hitting twice were Blachly with three runs and a double; Keenon, with two runs; Seiber, with a run, two RBIS and a double; Jutte, with two runs; and Van Eck, with two runs and three RBIs.
Hitting once were Joe Salsbery, with two runs, an RBI and a double; Tow, with a run, three RBIs and a double; and Jake Long, with two runs, two RBIs and a double.
Dan Virtue pitched four innings, giving up one earned run, three hits and two walks, with four strikeouts. Seiber pitched the final innings, with two strikeouts.
The Huskies were scheduled to host Cottage Grove on Tuesday and travel to Cottage Grove on Friday to finish the regular season.
Sweet Home 010 500 0 – 6 12 2
Sutherlin 011 000 3 – 5 7 2
Sutherlin 0 1 1 00 – 2 3 8
Sweet Home 1(10)2 4x – 17 16 1