LCC sweeps Pierce
Sunday, April 27, 2008 12:23 AM PDT
By Rick McCorkle
Printable version
E-mail this articleAt this point in the season, Lower Columbia College baseball coach Kelly Smith will take a victory any way he can get it.
Tyler Lichty pitched a one-hitter through six innings and Brooks Lindsley tossed a scoreless seventh inning as LCC shut out Pierce 4-0 in the opener, and the Red Devils rallied for nine runs in the last three innings to claim a 10-7 victory in the nightcap in Western Division baseball on David Story Field Saturday.
LCC cleared the first hurdle of the weekend with a sweep of Pierce, and hosts division-leading Tacoma in a doubleheader this afternoon at 1 on Story Field.
The sweep moved LCC to 17-17, 12-3 in league. Pierce slipped to 13-17 and 6-9.
"We faced their ace pitcher (Brian Wall) in the opener and did a pretty good job offensively," Smith said. "We had one of the better gameplans we've had in a long time, and I felt pretty good about what we did. Then it was the old syndrome where we had to play a second game and got off to a slow start. It's something these guys will have to figure out because I'm tired of giving pep talks between games of doubleheaders."
Lichty, a freshman right-hander from Sandpoint High in Sagle, Idaho, stymied the Pierce offense with a fastball that was consistently clocked at 90-91 miles per hour. The Raiders managed three baserunners via an LCC error in the first inning, a base hit in the third and a walk in the sixth, but none of them reached second base.
"I felt warm and really comfortable," Lichty said. "I was able to come out and throw first-pitch strikes along with getting my secondary pitches over the plate."
Lichty threw 54 of his 78 pitches for strikes and struck out six Raiders before he was lifted for closer Lindsley in the seventh.
"I wanted to go all seven innings, but I could feel my arm was starting to slow up and I was getting a little tired in the last part of the sixth inning," Lichty added. "I'm definitely improving from where I was at during the first part of the season."
Smith was impressed with Lichty's performance.
"Tyler did an outstanding job," he said. "His arm was starting to tire a little, so we thought it was time to bring in Brooks."
LCC broke up a scoreless tie in the third inning when they parlayed singles from Nic Shadle, Jett Hart and Richie Allen, and a walk to Sean Winston into a 2-0 lead. The Devils added two insurance runs in the fifth inning when Shadle coaxed a leadoff walk, moved to third on a double from Winston, and scored on an Allen single. Winston later scored when Pierce first baseman Garrett Cochran tried to pickoff Winston at third base but threw the ball over the third baseman's head and into left field.
The Devils finished with nine hits. Luke Zirkle had two including a second inning double that was inches from being a home run when it bounced off the top of the right-center field fence.
In the nightcap, Pierce took advantage of a hit batter, a walk and an error by LCC shortstop Jett Hart to grab a 2-0 lead in the first inning off starter Cody Fassold. The Devils trimmed their deficit in half in the third when Lindsley stroked an RBI double to left-center field that scored Winston, but Pierce countered with four runs in the fifth inning on a combination of hits and poor plays by the Devils.
LCC reliever Rye Phillips cruised through the third and fourth innings untouched, but the Raiders roughed him up for two singles and two walks before he yielded to reliever Ryan Graves with the bases loaded.
Graves didn't provide the relief that Smith and LCC pitching coach Rob Hippi were looking for. In his two-thirds of an inning of relief, the freshman from Puyallup uncorked two wild pitches that scored two runs. He made a spectacular diving play of a pop up along the first base line for an out, but he jumped to his feet and fired a throw over the third baseman's head and out of play that scored Pierce's fourth run of the inning.
"I don't know what was going on out there in the fifth inning because I had passed out in the dugout," a disgusted Smith said. "We made some of the dumbest moves I've seen in a long time. I thought it was bad last week, but I think this probably tops it."
After going scoreless in the bottom of the fifth, the Devils' bats came alive as they scored a combined nine runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.
"The guys were pouting and it was pathetic," Smith said. "I got them together and told them they could either fold up the tent, or we could peck away and get a run at a time. We scored four runs in the sixth inning on their ineptness, which is how they scored their runs off of us in the fifth."
Tyler Davis was safe on a two-out error, Shadle beat out an infield hit and Hart was hit by a pitch that loaded the bases. Davis scampered home on a passed ball, Winston walked to re-load the bases, and Allen hit a line drive that caromed off the second baseman's glove and into right field that scored Shadle and Hart. Winston later scored on a wild pitch as LCC trailed 6-5.
LCC turned singles from Shawn Peterson, Bas Nooij, Shadle and Hart into two runs in the seventh for a 7-6 lead, and scored three insurance runs in the eighth highlighted by a bases-loaded walk to Nooij and a two-run single from Davis.
While the Devils were frantically scoring runs, reliever Ben Rosen held the Raiders in check. Rosen held Pierce to one baserunner in the three innings, and left the game with two outs in the ninth inning with runners at first and second bases.
"Rosen had been moving down the depth chart and I don't know if he knew that, but he responded favorably," Smith said. "He really did a nice job saving us so we could make a rally."
Smith gave the ball to the usually reliable Lindsley, who threw eight consecutive balls before finding the strike zone. He walked the bases full and walked in a run before striking out the next batter on eight pitches to end the game.
LCC finished with nine hits. Shadle, Hart and Lindsley had two apiece, Winston walked twice, was hit by a pitch and scored two runs, and Davis and Allen had two RBIs apiece.
"I guess a win's a win, and I'm going to get used to accepting us playing crappy and winning," Smith said. "We have no margin for error so we have to keep winning no matter what it takes."
GAME 1: Red Devils 4, Raiders 0
Pierce 000 000 0-0 1 3
Lower Col. 002 020 x-4 9 1
Brian Wall and Josh Serrick; Tyler Lichty, Brooks Lindsley (7) and Bo Lybeck.
GAME 2: Red Devils 10, Raiders 7
Pierce 200 040 001- 7 3 4
Lower Col. 001 004 230-10 9 4
Travis Stultz, Jake Patterson (8), Ryan King (8) and Josh Serrick, Steven Knowles (1), Chase Doughty (6); Cody Fassold, Michael Greene (2), Rye Phillips (3), Ryan Graves (5), Ben Rosen (6), Brooks Lindsley (9) and Bo Lybeck, Bas Nooij (6).
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