By Keeghan Gittins
For The New Era
Sweet Home’ young baseball team opened its Oregon West Conference season last week with three nasty losses to now-No. 4 Philomath – 25-1, 19-4 and 12-1, each game ending in a mercy rule.
The Huskies hosted Philomath Monday, April 14, and endured a 25-1 loss.
While at the plate Sweet Home struck out 12 times in the five innings that were played.
“We have been in a slump at the plate, and we showed that this series,”: said Head Coach Evan Teter.
The opener against the Warriors started as a close game, with Sweet Home only down three entering the top of the third. But the visitors then scored 10 runs, and added another 11 in the fifth.
Lead-off hitter Kyle Zajic led the team with two hits in his three at-bats, but Conner Northern was the only Husky to touch home plate.
Four players took the mound against Philomath with Bradyn McClure and Damon Lawrence both throwing 21 strikes.
Philomath starter Caleb Babcock proved to be a problem for the Huskies, only allowing three hits as he went the distance, and then adding four runs and five RBIs, a double and a triple.
On Wednesday, Sweet Home traveled to Philomath for their second match-up of the week, but this time the Warriors started with three runs in the first, added seven in the second and another six in the third.
Sweet Home ended its drought at the plate with a triple from Tregon Francis, allowing Cohen Gutierrez to score.
But the Warriors stormed back with three more runs in the bottom of the fourth to finish things off, 19-4.
Philomath only had six earned runs this game; the Warriors were walked six times and only had 11 hits.
Francis, Zajic, and Rosa scored three runs in the top of the fifth but it was too little too late and the game was ended due to the mercy rule.
The third game, on Thursday, Sweet Home had its best defensive effort of the trio. But still resulted in another big loss.
“Our pitchers did a great job of throwing strikes and giving our defense a chance,” Teter said.
Luke Rosa threw 84 pitches in his four innings, 52 of which were strikes.
“We know that we didn’t perform like ourselves. We also struggled at the plate,” Teter said, noting that Philomath’s top two starters threw 80-plus and “hit their spots well.”
The Huskies had four strikeouts and four ground-outs.
McClure had two of the Huskies’ five hits in the last game, and scored the only run on a Greer RBI. The third inning was the best defensively for the Huskies, only giving up two singles, and zero runs.
“This showed we can go out and compete with them.” Said Teter. Sweet Home didn’t give up any runs in huge amounts like they did in the previous games, only being down six entering the fifth inning. Philomath scored five runs and got out the last batters, invoking the mercy rule once again.
Sweet Home faces Cascade (5-5, 1-2 coming into this week’s games) on the road on Monday and Thursday, April 21 and 24, and at home on Wednesday, April 23. Wednesday will be the second annual Youth Night with the Sweet Home Youth Baseball League.
“We are excited to have the youth baseball players come out Wednesday.” Said Teter. Thursday April 24 Sweet Home will travel back to Cascade to face the cougars once more.
Next week the Huskies will host Newport on April 28 and May 1, and play April 30 on the road. All OWC games start at 5 p.m.