Bruin boys baseball, coming off a six league game win streak, hosted the North Valley Knights, coming off a three game sweep of Lakeview themselves, who made the trip to the coast to start a three game series with the Bruins.
Coach Wallin sent Colton Burger to the mound hoping to keep the North Valley offense off the scoreboard early giving the Bruin offense a chance to take an early lead. Burger did just that, shutting down the Knights offense in the first two innings allowing the Bruins to take a 1-0 lead after one.
Burger would keep the North Valley bats quiet going into the third, but the Knights would string together some hits to move two runners across the plate to take a 1-2 lead going into the fourth inning.
The Bruins would answer in the bottom of the fourth, working a runner around the bases to tie the game 2-2 after four innings. But in the top of the fifth, the Knights would take advantage of a Bruin pitcher change putting up five runs in the top in the fifth. The Bruin bats would answer with two runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning, closing the gap to three.
The Bruin defense would tighten up in the final two innings of play, keeping the strong Hidden Valley offense off the basepaths and scoreless. But the Bruins just could not string any offense together, going scoreless themselves to end the game 4-9.
“Really proud of our effort. Our pitching gave us a chance to win today.” coach Wallin told the Compass after the game. “We were real happy to be able to put some runs on the board against one of the best arms we have seen this year. We just had a few bad breaks early in the 5th that caused a big inning. Credit North Valley, they showed up with good energy and that program continues to grow and get better each year.”
The Bruins will see the Knights again this Friday, making the trip to Grants Pass to complete the series with a double header at North Valley with a Friday afternoon first pitch at 3:00pm.
