On Tuesday afternoon a very confident 3-0 Cascade Christian Challengers varsity boys baseball team rolled into town to take on BHHS head coach Keith Wallin’s 3-0 Bruins. The Challengers came into the game undefeated, scoring 45 runs in three games, while the Bruins came into the game sitting at 3-0 also, without allowing a run to be scored on them defensively. Something had to give.
Coach Walling sent senior right-hander Adam Shew #13 to the mound to face the offensively powerful Challenger line-up and give the Bruin offense a chance to stay close. Shew saw 5 batters in the top of the 1st, and the Challengers managed to get a runner across the plate after an Adam Shew wild pitch, but the Bruin defense would work their way out of the top of the 1st only trailing 0-1.
After being scored on for the first time in the 2021 season, the Bruin offense went to the plate trailing, and went right to work. Senior Payton Armentrout #1 would lead off and get on with a line drive single to centerfield, followed by Adam Shew who would send a double to centerfield on a hit and run, scoring Armentrout from 1st to tie the game at 1. The bases would be full of Bruins for the rest of the first inning, forcing the Crusader starting pitcher to throw over 40 pitches in the bottom of the 1st, only to finally get out of the inning trailing 5-1.
Shew then pitched a key shut-down top of the 2nd, sending the Bruin bats back to the plate where again the base paths were full of Bruins after stringing a few hits together, adding 2 more runs. Bruin bats forced the Crusader starting pitcher out of the game after 7 runs from 6 hits and 3 walks in just 1-2/3 innings.
Seven Bruin batters had multiple hits, and seven Bruin batters were responsible for 11 runs batted in. Shew would go on to pitch 4 innings, striking out 6 and only see Cascade Christian put together enough offense in the top of the 4th to add two more runs, before the Bruins put the game away 12-4.
Talking with coach Wallin after the game he said, “It was a great team win today…The guys had tons of unselfish at bats which led to some big innings.” he told the Compass. “We still have some things to clean up, Cascade Christian is big and very athletic, we will need to be at our best going into their house this Friday.”
The Bruins travel to Medford Friday, April 23rd for a double header against this same, and now 3-1, Cascade Christian Challengers team starting at 3:00pm.
