HRV baseball’s win streak moves to eight with Putnam win

HOOD RIVER — The Hood River Valley High School baseball team picked up a, 9-6, Northwest Oregon Conference (NWOC) win at Putnam on April 21, which extended the Eagles’ win streak to eight games.

The OSAA Class 5A No. 2-ranked Eagles (11-3, 4-0 NWOC), led by Coach Maz Reitz, had a battle on their hands against the Kingsmen (5-9, 1-3 NWOC).

“This game was a typical conference dogfight,” said Reitz. “Neither team was going to back down, but we took great at-bats through the game and applied constant pressure on the bases, and our defense really picked us up by making some tough plays in the outfield and handling all the routine plays on the infield. It was a great team win.”

HRV scored four runs in the top of the first inning, but Putnam answered with four runs of its own, setting a back-and-forth tone for the rest of the game. The Eagles scored two unanswered runs in the second inning to make it 6-4 and added two more in the third. However, Putnam responded with two runs in the bottom of the third, to make it 8-6 HRV.

Neither team scored a run in the fourth and fifth innings, before HRV rattled off one more run in the sixth inning to seal the deal.

Sophomore Tyson Harjo led the charge for the Eagles both on the mound and in the batter’s box. Harjo pitched four innings, struck out two, and allowed two hits and zero runs. He also went 4-for-5 at the plate with two RBI and zero strikeouts.

“Tyson Harjo was especially big in this game with a four-hit game and four shutout innings on the mound.  It was really a special performance on the diamond for him,” said Reitz.

This week, HRV has a two-game (home and away) NWOC series against Milwaukee High School, and will finish the week with another home NWOC game against La Salle Prep. First, the Eagles face the Mustangs (5-8, 0-4 NWOC) at 5 p.m. on April 28 at home, then they’ll hit the road for a 5 p.m. match-up the next day at Milwaukee. HRV ends the week at 5 p.m. on May 1 against the Falcons (8-9, 5-1 NWOC) at home.