By John L. Braese
The Enterprise
The Vale Vikings went on a scoring spree last week with 50 runs in two games while posting its first league win of the season. In one inning, the Viks brought 12 runners home.
The Viks downed the Riverside Pirates 29-10 in game one and followed with a 21-8 victory.
“These games look on paper that we really put it on them, but the games were pretty close until the sixth inning in both games,” said Vale Coach Rick Yraguen. “We had really good sixth innings in both games, scoring 12 runs in game one and 10 runs in game two. We really shined at the plate with 25 hits and 39 RBIs. I wish we could be that consistent on the year.”
In the two games, Tanner Hamilton was 4-for-8 with four RBIs. Dillon Kaschmitter and Cade Perrey added five RBIs.
Dawson Eddy belted his first homerun of the season in game two and put together seven RBIs. Karson Brown recorded six RBIs and Marco Gomez picked up four.
The going was not as easy earlier in the week as the Vikings fell to the Nyssa Bulldogs 15-7 on Tuesday.
The two teams traded the lead in the early innings before the Dawgs exploded for nine runs in the seventh for the victory.
“We threw five different pitchers to try and stay under the new pitch count rules and it is tough to get in any groove when always changing pitchers,” Yraguen said. “Nyssa is a very good team that always puts the pressure on you when they are on the bases and that kind of got to us a bit.”
Vale (4-5 overall, 2-3 Eastern Oregon League) hosted the New Plymouth Pilgrims on Monday and followed that game up with playing host to the Parma Panthers on Tuesday. Due to press time, results were unavailable.
The Vikings return to league action Friday as the team hosts the other Vikings in the league, Umatilla (1-8-1 overall, 0-4 league), for two games on Friday.