Vintage’s bats come to life late in loss to Oak Ridge
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
A team can just be better than you, not matter what it is that you do.
This was the case for the Vintage baseball team in their 7-3 loss to Oak Ridge of El Dorado Hills.
“They’re clearly the best team we’ve played in the preseason,” Vintage coach Rich Anderson explained.
However, the defense on the infield was a positive for Anderson.
“Our infield defense was fantastic today,” he said. “They did a really good job on that.”
The Trojans (1-1) scored three runs in the to begin the game. They got runs off of two doubles and a single to go along with a hit-by-pitch.
Oak Ridge also scored a run in the third and fifth innings, while also scoring two more in the seventh.
The Crushers (3-4) scored their only runs of the game in the bottom of the sixth inning. Zach Joson singled and came home on a Eli Wood sacrifice fly. After reaching on a error, Jake Whipple scored on a Felix Ortiz single. Davide Migotto walked, and later came around to score on a wild pitch.
“We didn’t do anything differently,” Anderson said. “I just thought that maybe some guys executed a little better than usual. I don’t think they changed anything. We’ve been scuffling a little bit offensively the last couple days, and they were just competing really hard and maybe just through sheer competitiveness they did a few good things right there.”
The Crushers also had opportunities to push runs across in the second, third, and seventh opportunities, but they were unable to take advantage of their chances.
Logan Nothman started for Vintage and took the loss. Over five innings of work he surrendered five runs, all of which were earned. However, Anderson thinks it was his best game of the season.
“In the first inning we think they might’ve had some signs,” Anderson added. “They were sitting on certain pitches, and then we switched them. I thought that might have been Logan’s best performance.”
Vintage will have a 10-day layoff before they begin the Vine Valley Athletic League season at home against cross town rival Justin-Siena on March 22nd at 4 p.m.
