HRV baseball team splits games this past week

First-year Coach Max Reitz said he’s happy with his team’s results thus far, as the Eagles continue to prepare for Intermountain Conference play.

The Eagles hosted La Salle Prep, traditionally one of the better 5A baseball programs, on March 29. The Falcons (3-5) had no answer for HRV starter Jake Von Lubken, who was in command enroute to a three-hit, two-walk, nine-strikeout, 3-1 win.

“Jake was on the attack,” Reitz said. “He had great tempo.”

The junior righthander threw 17 first-pitch strikes to the 22 batters he faced. La Salle did do a good job of running up von Lubken’s pitch count, which led to Keegan Losee working the seventh inning for the Eagles.

“They were real adept at fouling pitches off with two strikes,” Reitz said of La Salle’s hitters. “Losee came in to close out the win. I don’t think he’s been scored on this year; he’s got a low heart rate — he’s poised. We trust Losee … he can throw a lot of strikes.”

Losee’s breaking stuff countered Von Lubken’s mid-80s fastball and the result kept the Falcons off balance most of the game.

Von Lubken helped his cause at the plate, as he doubled in the first inning to score Trenton Hughes, who had reached on an infield single. Joe Reitz scored the Eagles’ second run in the opening frame. Reitz alertly raced home from third after La Salle catcher Joey Irish threw to first base after he had dropped a called third strike.

“Joe made two good baserunning decisions (that scored runs),” Max Reitz said of his son and HRV’s starting catcher.

The second was in the bottom of the fifth inning, with one out and Joe Reitz on third. A roller down the line was fielded by La Salle’s third baseman, who failed to look Reitz back to the bag before throwing to first. Reitz took off for home on the throw and scored standing up to give HRV a 3-0 lead.

La Salle struck back for its lone run in the top half of the sixth inning before Von Lubken regained control before giving way to Losee in the seventh.

“We jumped on them early which is something we talk about,” Coach Reitz said of the La Salle game.

Oregon City coaches must be having similar talks with their players, as the Pioneers were all over HRV when the Eagles visited the Class 6A school April 1. “We just didn’t make the routine plays in this one early and they are too good to give them those opportunities,” Reitz said of the 11-0, five-inning Oregon Cit y win.

The Pioneers took advantage of two HRV first-inning errors, as well as a number of other mistakes, to burst out to a 9-0 lead. The contest was fairly even after that point, but the damage had been done.

Oregon City showed the visiting Eagles why it’s ranked third in the latest Class 6A rankings, led by righthanded pitcher Dane Lais. He threw five innings, allowed one hit, walked three and struck out eight.

“He threw in the mid-80s; kept the ball down in the strike zone, at the knees,” Reitz said. “He threw his breaking ball for strikes pretty consistently. That’s a pretty good combination for success at the high school level.”

Lais had his no-hit bid broken up by HRV’s Cole Duckwall, who stroked a two-out double in the bottom of the fifth inning.

“We had a few walks; we squared up some balls fairly good — lined into a double play,” Reitz said. The coached added that, defensively, the Eagles didn’t deserve to win the game. “The real disappointment for that game was our defense, which has been so good. It let us down in the first inning.

“We should have been out of that inning multiple times. Outside of that first inning, the last four were played to a 2-0 score.”

League play looms a week from Friday with a doubleheader at Ridgeview in Redmond.