Firefighters schedule major drill on July 20

The Outlaws baseball team defeated Cascade 4-1 at North Marion (neutral site) on Friday, May 20 despite the brutal weather conditions that delayed the game.

When the Outlaws arrived at North Marion for their inter-league playoff game against Cascade, rain was coming down in torrents. The field had been tarped and hopes were the rain would let up and the game would be played. Finally, there was a break in the weather and the tarps were removed.

As soon as the field was exposed a storm blew in and unloaded onto the field. It took one-and-a-half hours and the efforts of both teams to remove the puddles and repair the field. Tarps were laid over the field just before the third downpour cut loose.

The game finally got started at 4 p.m., two hours later than scheduled.

Cascade, which last week pounded the Outlaws 15-0, got their one and only run in the second inning on a single and a couple of Outlaws errors.

The Cougars pitcher dominated the game and struck out 15 Sisters batters. Just when the Outlaws would get runners on base and get in scoring position the next batter would strike out leaving runners stranded. Cascade held a slim 1-0 lead to the top of the seventh inning.

“It was looking pretty bleak,” said Bigby. “It didn’t seem like we could touch the ball and all of a sudden we exploded.”

With one out in the top of the seventh Jeff Fitter ripped a double to right center.

“When the next batter struck out,” said Bigby, “it looked like it was going to be the same old story.”

With two outs Andy Burke was intentionally walked placing runners at first and second.

“Andy was having some good at bats and our next batter up was Blake Poynor who had struck out three times. Their plan was to avoid Andy and pitch to Poynor,” the coach said.

Poynor surprised them all. On the first pitch he hit a single line drive single, which scored Fitter and tied the game at 1-1. With runners at first and third Jeff Sampson hit a two RBI line drive double over the center fielder’s head and the Outlaws took a 3-1 lead. Jesse Stevens followed with a triple down the right field line to score Sampson and Sisters walked away with a 4-1 win.

Fitter threw the entire game for the Outlaws, had six strikeouts, only one walk and scattered four hits.

“Jeff had his best stuff today,” said Bigby, “and was able to locate his pitches very effectively.”

Fitter, Sampson and Carter Davenport all doubled and Stevens had a triple. Sampson had two RBI and both Poynor and Stevens had one.

“We had to win this interleague play-off game in order to play the third place team in our league to try and get the #3 seed for the state playoff,” said Bigby.

Immediately following the victory over Cascade the Outlaws took on Sweet Home to see who would advance to the State Playoffs as the #3 seed. The Outlaws lost 6-1 to the Huskies, ending their 2005 season.

“They (Sweet Home) played fundamentally better than us,” said Bigby. “They didn’t have any errors and their pitcher really attacked the strike zone and didn’t walk a single batter.”

Sisters got nine scattered hits in the game but was unable to get the timely hits to knock runners across the plate. Defensively, the Outlaws only gave up two earned runs.