Wayne Spinney
For The New Era
The Huskies split a pair of league games last week, winning in Stayton 7-0 and losing on Thursday to the Indians in Molalla, 5-1.
After being away from the friendly confines of Husky Field since hosting a game on April 26, Sweet Home Varsity Baseball Coach Dan Tow spoke about his teams? efforts over the recently passed thirteen days.
?The guys have been playing some pretty good baseball with the season coming to a close. Pitching has been reliable, we?re hitting with power and playing better in the field too,? reflected Tow. ?It will be good to finish the season at home though after being on the road so long.?
A quirk in scheduling combined with re-scheduled rainouts has the Huskies playing five road games in a row through this week?s Tuesday matchup in Sisters. At seven wins and five losses, Tow finds his charges a game up on fourth-place Molalla and even in the standings with Stayton in second place.
Sweet Home 7 Stayton 0
The short bus ride up Richardson Gap to Marion County saw the Huskies put it all together by combining hitting, solid pitching and reliable defense. The men in green jumped to a four-zip lead by scoring four in the top of the first.
?We hadn?t seen a home run from our bats since a pre-season game against Newport,? said Tow. ?We hit two out in the first inning and then Brandon Martin hit a third one out in the seventh for insurance.?
Reliable lead-off hitter Dajon DeMille reached on a single to start the game, and Lance Carter promptly drilled a one-and-one pitch out of the park to punctuate the cross-county bus stop. Travis Smith was plunked with the second pitch to him which led to Martin hitting his first shot out of the park on another one-and-one pitch. On the unlucky thirteenth pitch of the game, Stayton found itself already down by a four-to-nothing score and wondering if there was a way of calling a truce to the shelling.
The Huskies scored three additional insurance runs in the late innings, one on another round tripper by Martin, while parlaying their twelve hits and the six-hit pitching by Martin into the key victory.
?The guys played their best game of the year at Stayton,? said Tow. ?They did almost everything right from only striking out twice to holding Stayton?s base runners to singles on balls that were hit off the wall.?
Sweet Home 1 Molalla 5
If the Huskies needed any proof of how evenly matched the league is this year, they had only to wait until Thursday of last week in Molalla.
The fourth-placed Indians have rallied to a five hundred record this year and were waiting to pounce on the road-weary Huskies. They did so in scoring three runs in the first inning off starter Cody Miller and played stellar defense in allowing only nine Huskies to reach base all day long.
?Their pitcher threw strikes, and they played really well in the field when they needed to. We had chances in the second, fourth and seventh innings but couldn?t squeeze any more than one run home,? lamented Tow.
DeMille again paced the Huskies with two hits and Carter pitched well in relief as the Huskies fell short but seemed well-prepared for the stretch run this year.
With three games left in the conference season the Huskies continue to be in control of their playoff destiny. If they run the table, they will take second on the strength of two victories over second placed Stayton. Finishing the season at Husky Filed will help. Hopes are riding on hosting three in a row with the third against a non-league opponent in the 3A playoffs.