Big fifth innings, birthday heroics bring Bulldogs one game away from state

Regardless of the sport carrying a five-game league losing streak into a win-or-go-home game is usually a precursor to bowing out unceremoniously in the sixth.

But these Bulldogs?

Not a chance.

“Our confidence level is high, we’re believing in each other and we’re believing in ourselves,” Sandpoint head coach Chase Tigert said after his Bulldogs went from a team playing in an elimination game, to a squad one win away from a state tournament berth in the span of an afternoon. “And that’s powerful.”

The 3-seed Sandpoint Bulldogs (9-14, 3-6 IEL)did not look like a team playing with its back against the wall. Instead, Sandpoint led wire-to-wire and got to Moscow’s bullpen with a monster, seven-run fifth inning to set up a best-of-three series with Lakeland. Once Sandpoint got to game one against the top-seeded Hawks, the Bulldogs didn’t slow down: Another big fifth inning (eight runs this time), disciplined defense and three-hit games from Anthony Arroyo, Kade MacDonald and Avery Bocksch put the top-seeded Hawks behind the eight-ball.

The latter of the three, sophomore third baseman Avery Bocksch, had a memorable performance on his sixteenth birthday. All told, Bocksch finished with three singles in game one, then two triples in game two. Not only that, Bocksch helped end Lakeland’s first inning with a critical double-play that was a harbinger for the Hawks’ base-running woes.

“Avery is an animal,” Tigert said afterwards with a grin. “He has far, exceeded all expectations. At third base, he’s a wall — he makes both the routine plays and some extraordinary plays — and at the plate he battles and sees pitches well. He’s going to have a very successful baseball career.”

All in all, nine different Bulldogs recorded a hit throughout Monday’s pair of games. MacDonald (two singles in game one, two singles and a double in game two for 3 RBI total) and Billy Brackett (a triple and a single in game one, and three singles in game two) also finished with five hits on the day.

From the moment Sandpoint struck first off of Billy Brackett’s triple, the Bulldogs looked like a team in control of the moment. Throw in Ethan Butler’s five innings of work — in which he pitched his way out of trouble not once, but twice during the game’s early innings — and stellar defense from Tyler Lehman and Kade MacDonald, and the Bulldogs didn’t fit the profile of a team that didn’t need to be put in an elimination-game scenario.

But as simplistic as it sounds, the day was defined by two fifth innings.

If the seven-inning explosion against Moscow saved the season, then the eight-inning rally to take the lead against Lakeland showed the team’s potential. Sandpoint’s ability to stay disciplined at the plate and wear down opposing starters paid off in both games; for a group coming in at the wrong end of two series sweeps against either team, it was hard to interpret each big fifth inning as exorcisms, of sorts.

Going into the fifth, Moscow pitcher Peyton Waters had allowed only five runs in his previous 14 innings of work against the Bulldogs. On Monday, it appeared that Waters would be on track to shut the Bulldogs down like he did earlier in the year.

But when Bocksch — who else? — came up to bat, that discipline, along with a little luck, paid off.

The birthday boy started the rally with a single over the first baseman’s head. Then MacDonald, another one of Sandpoint’s usual suspects, hit a grounder to shortstop that looked like it could be a double play.

Instead, Moscow’s second baseman, quite literally and figuratively, dropped the ball. Bocksch rounded second to put runners on the corners with nobody out.

Catcher Connor Dodd’s RBI single got the ball rolling. Max Thielbahr drew a walk, loading the bases for the first of four times in the inning.

Then it was Arroyo’s turn.

The junior’s grounder to third turned into a two-RBI single thanks to Brackett and Cameron Garcia’s speed, with Moscow’s high throw to first thrown in for good measure.

By the time Bocksch and MacDonald came up to bat for the second time in the inning, both were seeing acres of grass in center field. They hit back-to-back RBI singles on nearly identical at-bats: first-pitch swings that landed in the same center-field gap.

Sandpoint didn’t look back.

“It comes back to the confidence,” Tigert said. “We were believing in ourselves, our teammates and what we stand for. Everyone was uniting today.”

Fast forward to the fifth inning against Lakeland, and Sandpoint’s self-belief was palpable.

That belief was evident in Garcia’s picture-perfect liner to left field. It was there when Alex Stockton dropped a towering, two-RBI single into no man’s land behind the first baseman. And that belief was made abundantly clear when sophomore Max Thielbahr jumped ahead 3-1 in the count, smacked a liner to deep left field for a three-RBI triple and screamed towards the dugout once he got up on his feet at third base.

Yet the offense was only part of the story. During the Bulldogs’ five-game league losing skid, Moscow and Lakeland averaged 10 runs per game. Sandpoint held both teams well under that average thanks to MacDonald, Garcia and Kerry Johnson’s work on the bases; plus Lehman and Stockton’s hustle in the outfield.

Base-running gaffes cost the Hawks multiple runs. With the two on and one out the first, Isaac Silva hit a tricky grounder in the gap between second and third base. The runner at second didn’t move, holding up the runner at first for an inning-ending double-play instead of what could have been a bases-loading single. Later in the fourth, Justin Dennison left third base right as Vanner Hegbloom showed bunt, putting a would-be run out at home. In total, the Bulldogs turned three double plays on Monday afternoon.

And now, Sandpoint is a game away from state. The Bulldogs host Lakeland on Wednesday at 4 p.m.

Sandpoint 110 070 1 — 10 13

Moscow 100 010 3 — 5 7

Fielding stats unavailable at press time.

W — Butler, 3. L —Waters, 5.

HITS: Sandpoint —Arroyo, Brackett, Garcia, Lehman, Bocksch 3, MacDonald 2, Dodd. 2B — Garcia. 3B — Brackett, Stockton. Moscow — Thompson, Decker, Redinger 2, Vis, Adams 3.

Sandpoint 000 282 0 — 12 15 4

Lakeland 011 020 0 — 4 6 5

W — Lehman, 5. L — Dennison, 4

HITS: Sandpoint — Garcia 2, Thielbahr, Arroyo 2, Brackett 3, Lehman, Stockton MacDonald 2. 2B — Arroyo, MacDonald 3B — Bocksch 2, Thielbahr. Lakeland — Bell, Hegbloom, Taylor 2, Bell. 2B — Harris.