Hits right through the order propelled the Southeast A’s bantam AAA baseball team to 11-2 and 11-7 wins over the Swift Current Indians in a doubleheader at Alameda Field on Saturday.
After a slow start to the second game of the doubleheader, the A’s (10-4-2 and first place in the Baseball Regina league) used a few unforced Indians’ errors to jump ahead 3-0 in the bottom of the second inning with Jose Reyes, Justin VanAchte and Jesse Schill crossing the plate on wild throws and a balk. Indians pitcher Carter Warkentin settled back down shortly afterwards going three up and three down in the third before Dylan Hull scored in the fourth inning to make it 4-0.
Indians’ Reed Jacobson went home on a Brody Alexandre bunt in the top of the fifth to get the team to within three, but the floodgates opened shortly afterwards with VanAchte, Schill, Noah Perkins, Dawson Schaff, Liam Rutten, Tyren Dorrance and Burke Lyons all putting runs on the board in the bottom of the inning.
“All of our guys were hitting,” said VanAchte, who earned the win as the A’s starting pitcher. “Their pitcher, we just got in his head that we were hitting the ball.”
“We made some errors in the first game and the second game we didn’t make the errors, so we set the tone for the game,” added A’s head coach Trent Dorrance. “That just gets everybody more positive right off the bat.”
The A’s started the twin-bill slowly as well, but in a more dramatic fashion by allowing seven Indians’ baserunners to cross the plate in the opening two innings leaving the club with a 7-1 deficit. Rutten and Dorrance got the comeback started in the fourth inning before Nick Singleton, Reyes and VanAchte scored in the fifth to close the score to 7-6 heading into the sixth inning.
“We had a really good pitching performance from our starter, Nolan Klein,” said Indians head coach Ken Wall, whose team moved to 5-10-2 with the losses. “He ran out of pitches and then our guys just couldn’t throw strikes. So just not sharp, then the rest of the game just got away from us.”
Lyons evened up the score in the bottom of the sixth, which was quickly followed by a go-ahead run from Hull. Singleton, Reyes and VanAchte then added insurance runs, with Lyons and Alex Kerr shutting down the Indians in relief.
“We had a bit of a lull in early June, late May, and I think now we’re back feeling fresh, feeling good again,” said Dorrance, whose team can earn a first-round bye in the playoffs if they continue to hold onto first place over the last two weeks of the regular season. “We’re starting to peak again, which is a good time to do that.”
