The Lefties couldn’t suppress Corvallis’ offense, falling in the second game of the series. (Photo courtesy of Maevis Photography)
Lefties lose a close one to the reigning champions
Written by: Ryan Wike
The story so far seems to be about the Lefties pitching staff.
The staff has been on a roll these last few games, and continued its strong performance in game one against Corvallis, but it was not enough to take down the reigning WCL champions, falling 4-3.
John Vaara (Edmonds College) pitched three scoreless innings to start the day off and was taken out in the fourth. He had three strikeouts and allowed five hits. After that, it was the Josh Verkuilen (Cal State, San Bernardino) show as he threw the rest of the game only giving up two runs across 4.1 innings.
But those two runs would be costly as the Lefties lost by one.
Port Angeles got off to a hot start, plating two runs against Corvallis to quiet the home crowd. Jeremy Giesegh (Cal State, San Bernardino) started off the game with a leadoff single, continuing his strong stretch in West Coast League play. The Lefties leadoff hitter now has a hit in all 10 WCL contests, notching multiple hits in five of them.
Roberto Garza-Nunez (Embry Riddle) drove in Giesegh with a single later in the inning and Kosei Suzuki (Frank Phillips) brought Garza-Nunez home with a single of his home, the third hit in the inning for the Lefties.
Suzuki led the team with his four at bats, recording three hits and swiping three bases with a run scored in the fourth inning.
The Lefties had their commanding 3-0 lead slowly evaporate as the Knights scored two in each of the fourth and sixth frames, which is all that they needed to win. Corvallis scored both of their sixth-inning runs with two outs, as Verkuilen gave up an RBI single and a hit-by-pitch with the bases loaded to give the Knights the lead for good.
The bats for the team were hot all night as four Lefties had multiple hits on the night, but Port Angeles couldn’t put it all together, going scoreless across the last five innings.
The Lefties gear up again against Corvallis tonight with Riley Ricken starting on the mound at 6:35.
