Hood River opens baseball season with two wins

Of the comeback win, HRV Coach Max Reitz said, “Those kind of victories a coach wants, but especially early in the season because it proves to your kids that you can come back. To get a win like that the first game of the year was really special and valuable because it’s something you can reference the rest of the season.”

HRV led 1-0, Scappoose tied the game 1-1, Hood River went ahead 2-1 before Scappoose went up, 4-2, in the top of the sixth inning.

“Scappoose is a good program; they are well coached,” Reitz said. “That was a really, really enjoyable baseball game. You had two really good pitchers going (seniors Wyatt Anicker of Scappoose and Jake Von Lubken of HRV).

“… That game was just tight all the way through. In the end, I liked how our kids competed. I thought they hung with it for seven innings. They really never lost focus. (Scappoose) gave us a little bit of a crack and we went through it because we kept at it, we kept putting pressure on.”

That included the bottom of the sixth, when the Eagles pulled within a run when sophomore Addison Postelwait scored on a passed ball. Reitz said the sophomore was able to score because he had alertly taken a secondary lead and raced home when the ball got by the Scappoose catcher. “He just made a good baseball read,” Reitz said of Postelwait. “He got a great jump, he read it right away, he was full commit, and scored on a bang-bang play at the plate.”

Reitz lifted Von Lubken, last year’s Intermountain Conference pitcher of the year, and sent Postelwait to the mound in the top of the seventh. The first-year varsity player responded with a quick 1-2-3 seventh inning. “He just pounded the zone and turned the inning really quickly,” Reitz said.

That allowed Hood River to return to the dugout where some of the momentum from the bottom of the sixth lingered. Von Lubken’s double to the centerfield fence plated a run to tie the game — speedy Grady Williams scored from first base on the play. Von Lubken’s heads-up baserunning allowed him to advance to third base on the throw to the plate. That got Von Lubken in position to score on a sacrifice fly, which Webber delivered on the next at bat to deep right-center field.

“He had some really good swings the entire game; he just wasn’t able to square anything up,” Reitz said of Webber. “He was able to get that sac fly, and we walked it off.”

Reitz started Webber against St. Helens and the junior was in control throughout, throwing 92 pitches in six innings of work. He struck out 11 and walked two with his team behind him playing another errorless game in the field. “He had one rough inning, but it’s not like they squared him up. He stayed composed and our defense got an out off a deflection off the pitcher. … It really turned an inning that could have got away from us … and kept it at a one-run inning.”

Postelwait came on in the seventh to earn the save. He gave up a couple of hits, but kept throwing strikes and didn’t walk any batters.

Offensively, Williams had three hits and a stolen base; Von Lubken added an RBI double. The game was 2-1 Eagles after sixth and a half innings, when the home team scored three runs to seal the win.

“I believe we put runners on base in every inning,” Reitz said. “We just couldn’t quite get the big hit. … We’re still striking out way too much … so we’ve got a lot of improvement to do there.

“The Scappoose game was a little better offensive game for us.”

Hood River was scheduled to play against visiting Pendleton (1-2) on Tuesday (result was after the printed edition deadline). HRV plays in a tournament at Adrienne Nelson High in Clackamas, with four games in three days starting March 30. “There’s some good teams there for sure,” Reitz said of the Nelson tourney. “We’re going to get challenged.”