Portland, Or.  9/3/08 – The Portland River Hawks

The Portland River Hawks played excellent baseball last night with great defense and solid base hits against an experienced Indians team that has played in the NABA metal bat league the past few years.

The River Hawks started the game with a defensive double play to shut down the Indians first inning.  The Hawks game back with solid hits but right at the Indians defensive players.

The second inning saw the Indians jump out with 4 straight base hits which scored their first 2 runs, on the 4th base hit Russell Barker made a great throw back to second base from center to nail the runner at second and the next two batters made routine outs to end the rally and inning.

Mike wood got the first double of the fall season in the second inning, but no runs were scored. 

The Indian top of the third went 1-2-3 on 7 pitches by starter Mike Austin.  The Hawks third started with a base hit by Russell Barker, was sacrificed to second by a great bunt by Mike Navarro and scored on a hit by Mike Austin

The forth inning the Indians again started off with a base hit, a walk and then catcher Beau Holstad then picked off the next batter on a steal attempt at second, two more base hits finished the inning with only 2 runs, this ended their scoring for the night.

The fifth inning saw Mike Wologorsky come in to relieve Mike Austin and allowing one hit, two walks and getting THREE STRIKE OUTS. The Hawks fought back with Dwight getting his fist hit of the fall, Russell forced out Dwight, on the next pitch Mike (Wally) then singled to right after Bobby P had move the runner to second and Russell scored his second run.

The sixth inning saw Stephen start his march to retiring 4 of the last 6 batters with Wally getting another strike out and a outstanding pickoff at first base.

The Hawks again saw their leading hitter (Jessie) get hit by a pitch,  Joshua reached base safely for the second time and Jared Nelson then laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt up first moving the runners to second and third.  The Indians then closed out the Hawks rally in the sixth and with 2 more Hawk base runners (walks) in the seventh the game ended with a 4-2 Indian win.

Recap: Indians 4 runs 10 hits 3 walks 4 left on base with 7 striking out

          Hawks 2 runs 9 hits 2 SF Bunts 4 walks and 11 men left on base with 6 striking out

(the Indians used metal bats to the wood bats of the Hawks)

This was only the second game that the Hawks had played showing the league that the they will be a team to contend