Hawks down Bulldogs; earn championship rematch
SANDPOINT — One team came in riding a seven-game win streak and sitting in the driver’s seat, while the other was playing its fourth game in four days and had to win to keep the season alive.
In Thursday’s 4A Region 1 tournament baseball game at War Memorial Field, a sense of urgency won out, as No. 2 Lakeland extended its season one more day with a 13-3 win over No. 1 seed Sandpoint (13-8).
Cody Vandever fired a three hitter, and the Hawks capitalized on some early Bulldog miscues to build a 9-0 lead after three innings, reversing the tables on Tuesday’s meeting, when Sandpoint jumped out to an early 9-1 lead.
“We haven’t given Sandpoint a good clean baseball game for a long time,” said Hawks coach Jason Bradbury. “We tried to play clean and aggressively and jump on them early and see how they’d react.”
The win evens the season series between the 4A North rivals at 3-3, with the decisive seventh game rematch today deciding who secures the lone state tournament berth.
Lakeland plated seven runs in the third inning, keyed by two run singles by Vandever and Daniel Mobeck, as Sandpoint committed a few of its seven errors in the big inning.
Joel Cramer provided Sandpoint’s biggest highlight when he crushed a line-drive three run homer to left center in the bottom of the fourth, to give the Bulldogs a brief spark, but that was about all they could muster against Vandever, who threw a 107 pitch complete game on Monday before coming back on two days rest.
“I told my pitchers yesterday we’re all in the same boat, and I said ‘who wants the ball,’” recalled Bradbury, whose team will play its fifth game in a row today. “Vandever said ‘I do coach,’ and he came out and threw lights out.”
Sandpoint head coach Chris Young felt his team came out a little flat, knowing it could lose a game and still be alive in the double elimination format.
Patrick Anthony came out throwing strikes early, but Lakeland was able to find the smallest of holes in the defense numerous times, as all 10 of the Hawks hits were singles, may of the seeing eye variety.
Both teams have seen the other’s pitchers numerous times, and both have shown the ability to score runs. The outcome in deciding games often comes down to which team executes the small things best, to say nothing of which team wants it more.
Young expects his charges to bounce back quickly, regaining the form that led to a recent seven game win streak, and said the wheels just kind of fell off on Thursday.
“I have got a lot of confidence in them coming back. They’ll come to the yard tomorrow more focused,” said Young, who felt his team gave Lakeland too many bases. “We’ll come back and hit the ball, no question.”
First pitch for the 4A Region 1 championship game is 4 p.m. at War Memorial Field.
Lakeland 207 013 — 13 10 1
Sandpoint 000 300 — 3 3 7
Cody Vandever and Luke Howell; Patrick Anthony, Tevin Hamilton (3), Daniel Charvoz (4), Markus Davis (6) and Eric Nikssarian and Corey Neer (3). W — Vandever. L — Anthony (3-3).
HITS: LL — Mobeck 2, Ogden, Cooper 2, South 2, Burnett 3. Spt — Cramer, Charvoz, Hamilton. HR — Cramer.