By Joe Petshow
For Columbia Gorge News
Hood River Valley’s baseball team last week got the win it so, so sorely needed — two of them in fact — bringing back a tad bit of normalcy into what has thus far been a challenging spring season.
Up next is a three-game test this week against Milwaukie’s Putnam, a team that swept the Northwest Oregon Conference series a season ago — and a team that has a four-game active win streak against the Eagles. (HRV’s last win over Putnam was a 4-0 victory in the 2015 Class 5A state championship.) Putnam (5-6, 3-0 NWOC after last week) swept its conference opening series last week over winless Milwaukie (behind a 36-8 run differential).
The Centennial series did not start well for Hood River, which lost the opener 12-1 on April 9 at Traner Field. The loss was the sixth in a row for HRV and the win ended a four-game losing skid for Centennial. HRV’s 11-4 bounce-back win a day later in Gresham reaffirmed Coach Max Reitz’s confidence in his team.
“It was very needed,” Reitz said of the seven-run victory in which HRV did not trail. “We obviously had been struggling in all three phases of the game: pitching, hitting and defense. We talked about how the conference [schedule] offered a chance to start fresh — start new.
“We had a series of very good practices [going into the series opener], but we played probably our worst game of the year against them to open up conference play.”
Hood River had two hits — singles by Grady Williams and Jordan Webber — and committed five errors in the 12-1 loss on April 9. A day later, HRV never trailed, outhitting Centennial 11-9 and limiting its errors to three. Williams, Webber, and Bodie Stuben each had three hits for the Eagles, but the star of the day was right-handed junior Addison Postlewait.
“I really feel like he deserved a lot of credit for that day because he brought competitive energy,” Reitz said. “He looked like a kid who said, ‘I’m going to pitch us to a victory today no matter what’ and his passion and the way he went about it was infectious for the rest of the team. It set a really good tone.”
Postlewait scattered nine hits over the seven-inning complete game stint and did not walk a batter. Sixty-four of his 89 pitches were thrown for strikes.
“To the kids’ credit they came back out, on the road, and played their most complete game,” Coach Reitz said. “We talked a lot after that first game … about when we play ball, the lights go on, you have to be at the energy level of the competition. I think they did a really did job of that.”
That carried over to Friday, back at Traner Field, where Williams no-hit Centennial over five innings and then received two combined relief innings — one-hit, one-run — from Davis Parr and Stuben. Williams struck out seven.
On Friday, Grady took what Postlewait had done on Wednesday and did the same thing. He said, “I’m here to pitch us to a victory’ and he brought that competitive energy and that fire and again set the tone on the mound. That was very important.”
HRV scored two runs in each of the second and fifth innings in the 4-1 series clincher. Postlewait, Gionni Villalobos, Kingston McAdam, Hunter Duckwall, and Maverick Hockett each had a hit for the home team.
HRV’s improved pitching will be key as league play heats up for Hood River. Lefty Webber has been relegated to DH duty because of a bum shoulder.
“We do have a lot of guys who throw bullpens and get coached on pitching … some guys will have to step into roles to compete and continue to improve,” Reitz said. “[Last] Wednesday and Friday we got really good starting pitching. That’s what it’s going to take. We can still get better; we still had too many walks and errors. But we’re improving.”
