(This article was originally published on JMcDonaldMedia.com)
By Jeremy McDonald
KEIZER, Ore.– It’s tough to beat a team three times in a row let lone two out of three as Keizer had against Corvallis entering the team’s third game of their three-game series at McNary High School Wednesday afternoon.
The bats were there as they were the night before with eight hits, but the Crushers couldn’t drive them in with consecutive hits as they did the night before in Corvallis as they were only able to walk away with two runs on the scoreboard.
“Collectively I think we have some good hits at times, but we couldn’t put them one after the other and so that really hurt us from yesterday’s game,” said Brandon Reed on the bats. “Yesterday’s game, everyone was hitting after everybody so it really helped us.”
The Crushers built a 2-0 lead entering the third inning over the Gerding Builders Minutemen off a Jack Suing single and a fielder’s choice allowed David Alfaro to score before Suing was caught taking home to end the inning.
Corvallis found a groove against Wyatt Lyons as they scored five runs on the Santiam pitcher to take a 5-2 lead entering the fourth before Devon BeDoya came in during the fifth inning to relieve Lyons with two runners on base and pitched three innings of one-hit, one-earned run ball to slow down the bats of the Gerding Builders.
“The energy was off and on, we need to have a little bit more energy. Pitchers did very well, threw a lot of strikes and they just hit the ball very well,” said Reed as their opponent found the gap seven times and took advantage of several free bases and three errors by the home-team host. “We made a few errors but other than that, we did pretty well. We just got to come out and swing a little bit better.”
But, the offense that was so hot the night before, couldn’t duplicate the same run production that made Keizer so successful Tuesday as Corvallis avoided the sweep Wednesday afternoon. And with one more game before a two-day break entering their three-game series with Newport, their non-league game versus Post 1 at David Douglas High School will be important for them to get them back on track for that series versus the Mid-Coast Dungies.
“Yesterday was fun but today, it was a bummer of a let-down. We didn’t get as many hits as we did today, I don’t know how to describe it. We just need to get back to work and get back at it,” said Robert Benson, who went 2-for-3 with an RBI in the game Wednesday.
