Grays Have the Blues Friday

Cox, Blues Pitchers Dominate
By Mark Anderson

January 20, Reckling Park—“Welcome to Reckling Park!”

Those were the words Kenny Ford heard after he hit what should have been a much longer fly ball that ended up being swept back toward the infield by the prairie winds blowing at Reckling on a warm January afternoon. Many a mighty swing became a harmless pop-up or short fly ball this afternoon.

But the wind wasn’t a factor when Bryan Cox was on the mound. He was, in a word, dominating, striking out four in the last two innings of work. All that could be managed against him was an infield single. And you couldn’t blame the wind, either—all of his outs came on strikeouts or groundouts.

But there were other pitchers that were pretty darn good themselves on Froday. Ryan Tacker certainly didn't have anything to be ashamed of, giving up only one run. Gunderson was on for the Grays, mixing in his pitches, keeping the Blues off-stride.

The Blues squad scored two runs early against Dengerman with 3 walks, a stolen base, and an rbi single by Danny Lehmann. They added another in the second off Dengerman—not really roughing him up, but Henley came through with an rbi single that made the score 3-0 after two.

The Grays scored their only run in the fifth when Joe Savery walked with one out. He stole second, and Luna reached on a walk. Reagan hit a ground ball which got one, but the throw was errant and Savery scored. Bramhall walked, but Duplesssis grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the inning.

Chad Lembeck put an exclamation mark on the Blues scoring in the sixth when he homered to left-centerfield with one out to close out the scoring.

Coach Graham said afterwards, “Cox was great. . . we’re going to need him like that.”

If Saturday was any indication of what the Owls opponents have to look forward to in Owl pitching, expect many more games like this inter-squad one. This pitching effort was against All-Conference preseason picks Joe Savery and Josh Rodriguez, just to name a few. Hopefully for the Owls, this game was a good indicator of what the season will hold—good pitching, clutch defense (three double plays by the Blue squad and two by the Gray squad), and heady base running by creating scoring opportunities.

NEXT SATURDAY: THE ALUMNI GAME