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Sports La Grande advances into semifinal
La Grande advances into semifinal
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ELGIN — It didn’t take La Grande long to get past its lone loss of the District 3 tournament, scoring four runs in the opening inning in a 17-3, four-inning rout Wednesday versus Milton-Freewater. “I was a little disappointed we started out a little bit slow,” La Grande manager Allen Childs said. “We’re still having trouble throwing strikes early on in the game, but we came around with the bats, got a spark and then got things rolling.” After costly errors on Tuesday, La Grande (3-1) responded with committing only one error against Milton-Freewater (0-4). “I told the guys yesterday was behind us, and today was a new day,” Childs said. “We got a goal to finish this thing on Friday and they sparked themselves.” Milton-Freewater responded with two runs in the bottom of the first inning from back-to-back line drives to center field. However, that would be as close as they would get. La Grande would answer with six and seven-run barrages in the following two innings, powered by doubles from Jake Chamberlain and Josh Gambill. Milton-Freewater left seven runners on base, including bases-loaded opportunities in the first and third innings. Mitch Workinger finished with two hits and two RBIs for La Grande, while striking out two and surrendering two hits in 2 1/3 innings pitched. “We came out ready to play,” Workinger said. “We were slow starting off, but we picked it up and started hitting the ball. We played good defense, and just played hard the whole game.” The win advances Blue Pool’s runner-up, La Grande, to a semifinal match today at 3 p.m. against the Red Pool first-place, Pendleton (4-0). Pendleton finished undefeated in pool play with a victory over Wallowa Valley on Wednesday. “Pendleton comes with some good pitching, some good hitting, just a good ball club,” Childs said. “I hope the boys come out and play their brand of baseball, give some good pitching and hit the ball like we’ve been doing all season.”
La Grande 467 0 — 17 13 1 Milton Freewater 201 0 — 3 7 4 WP — Cederholm. LP — Yenson. 2B — LG, Chamberlain, Gambill; MF, Saldana. |
