Clinging to a one-run lead in the bottom of the seventh inning, Ripon Christian’s Jack Strickland toed the rubber for the first time Wednesday.
He posted a three-up, three-down frame, but it was not an easy outing.
He ran the count to 3-0 on his first batter before working the count full and inducing a comebacker for the first out. He struck out the second batter and got the final out on a hard-hit grounder to second, saving a 5-4 Trans-Valley League win over host Ripon at Mistlin Sports complex.
“Obviously, I did not want to get ahead in that count,” Strickland said. “But I had to fight back and throw strikes. It’s all about the release point.
“I had a good defense behind me and I trusted them to get the out.”
The Knights (6-1 TVL, 12-2 overall) scored two runs in each of the first two innings. Before leaving the game due to injury sustained while catching, Maxx Anderson doubled in Jackson Howell for the first run and came home when he stole third and the throw sailed into left, allowing him to make the score 2-0.
Noah De Bruyn and Trenton Cloward were both hit by a pitch to start the Ripon Christian second and scored on a grounder by Howell that was too hot to handle De Bruyn was hit by a pitch to start the fourth – the Knights were hit six times by pitches – and scored on an Ethan Vander Plaats single to make the score 5-2.
“This is a game last year that we don’t win,” Ripon Christian coach John de Visser said. “Now, we are starting to figure out how to finish a game.
“It’s not pretty, and I think I said this a few weeks ago, but we are finding different ways to do this. You just take this one, move on to tomorrow, and there is no time in the middle to fix it. We just have to roll with what we have and go from there.”
Talen Tameling reached base three times for the Knights, going 2 for 4 with a fielder’s choice.
“I felt pretty confident at the plate,” Tameling said. “I felt locked in from the beginning of the game.”
The Indians scored two runs in the bottom of the first when Jack Peters (RBI) came in on an error off the bat of Brayden McDowell – one of five Ripon Christian errors – and McDowell scored on and RBI by Landon Espinola. Michael Faria walked to start the fourth and sixth innings for Ripon, scoring in the fourth on a Peters single and in the sixth on an error off the bat of McDowell.
“That’s baseball,” Ripon coach Chris Barna said. “A one-run game where everybody is in it is fun. That’s the way it should be.
“Sometimes, you hit the ball hard right at someone. We were just one big hit away more than once. We left the bases loaded twice, and we had first and third twice. That’s how baseball goes, and we get to try it all again tomorrow.”
The two teams wrap up their TVL set today at Ripon Christian at 4 p.m.
