| Pirates
lose District opener
It was a promising start but the offense quickly went on hiatus and the Prairie baseball team wound up losing 1-2 in 9 innings to Wallace in their district tournament opener Friday, May 7 at Orofino. Prairie’s first two hitters each got hits as Jacob Riener led off with a single and Shane Doyle followed with a double. Riener didn’t score on the double as he had to hold up to make sure it wasn’t caught. After that things quickly went downhill for the Pirates. 
Matt Baerlocher hit a little dribbler with Riener going on contact. Unfortunately Riener stopped when he saw the pitcher field the ball and that hesitation was enough for him to be thrown out at the plate. Prairie then got their run when Baerlocher stole second. The throw got past the second baseman with Doyle scoring from third. Tyler Crane then reached on an error but Baerlocher rounded third too far on the play and wound up in a rundown and was put out. The two baserunning mistakes in the inning took Prairie out of what could have been a big inning. In the third inning Prairie had the bases loaded with 1 out and couldn’t score. Kevin Funke led off with a walk and Riener followed with another walk. Doyle forced Riener at second and Baerlocher was hit by a pitch to load the bases. A strikeout and a comebacker to the mound got Wallace out of the inning. Meanwhile C.J. Rieman was pitching an outstanding game for Prairie. He gave up 2 hits in the first inning but got out of the jam with a couple of grounders to short.  Wallace
had runners at second and third with 1 out in the third but another grounder
to short where Baerlocher froze the runner at third, and a comebacker to
the mound got Prairie out of the inning.
Wallace got a runner to third after a double and groundout in the fifth but Rieman got a lineout to short to get out of the inning. Rieman went 6 innings allowing 5 hits with 4 strikeouts and 2 walks, 1 of those intentional. Baerlocher came on in the bottom of the seventh with the score still at 1-0. He struck out the first batter but walked the second. A grounder to second moved the runner over to second. Wallace then tied the game on a little dribbler that Baerlocher fielded but being lefthanded had to do a full turn to get a throw off and it sailed wide of first with the runner scoring all the way from second on the play. Baerlocher struck out the next batter to send the game into extra innings. 
Prairie went out in order in the eighth but Riener got a 2 out single to left in the night and went to second on an error on the play by the leftfielder. Doyle then hit the ball hard to left but it was caught to end the inning. Baerlocher pitched the eighth for Prairie getting the side out in order but was lifted in the ninth because he was to be the starter on Saturday if they won Friday. Mat Forsmann came in and walked the lead off batter on 4 pitches. A sacrifice moved the runner up and with nobody covering at third, the runner advanced all the way to third on the play. After an intentional walk put runners at first and third, Wallace executed a perfect squeeze play for the winning run. Prairie had 7 hits in the game, 2 singles by Riener, a double and a single by Baerlocher, a double by Doyle and a single each by Crane and Chad Arnzen. In two innings of relief Baerlocher allowed no hits with 1 walk and 3 strikeouts. Forsmann pitched 1/3 of an inning allowing 2 walks and a hit. Prairie 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0—1 7 2 Wallace 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1—2 6 3 Pirate Baseball Schedule May 20th- 22nd Away State Tour. (Orofino) TBA |
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