RUSSELLVILLE - While it wasn't the end result the Indians wanted, it's hard not to say Russellville has improved since its seven-game losing streak, which was snapped Friday with a 15-5 win against the School of the Osage in the Russellville Round Robin. The Indians went on to place second of four teams, losing in the championship to Jamestown in extra innings.
"We're doing some things a lot better than we were the last couple of weeks," Russellville coach Lucas Branson said. "That's a good sign as we get towards the end of our season. Obviously a one run game comes down to whoever executes, and I kind of feel like we let a couple of things slip through and didn't execute as well as we probably needed to."
Costly errors was the difference in the 4-3 loss to Jamestown, with the go-ahead run in the eighth inning scoring on Russellville's fourth error of the game.
"That was a really good baseball game to be apart of," Branson said. "I'd rather have a game like this than the 11-0 game this morning. Sometimes you don't get much out of that."
In the first inning, Jamestown's starting pitcher, Garrett Wolfe, retired the first two batters in three pitches. But Caleb Harrison, Ryland Johnson, Zach Voss and Isaac Kirchner had four straight singles to score 2-0 runs.
But Wolfe settled in and held the Indians to three more hits the rest of the game.
"He did a decent job of moving his pitches around, and he threw strikes and kept us off balance," Branson said.
The Eagles tied the game in the fourth, with help off an error by the Indian defense, then took the lead in the sixth. Jamestown started the sixth inning by reaching base off another error.
Russellville did answer in its half of the sixth, loading the bases with one out. After a strike out for the second out, Cory Minor appeared to strick out for the third out of the inning. But the high fastball was just out of reach of the catcher, which allowed the tying-run to score and Minor to take first.
"We were fortunate with the strike out," said Branson. "He didn't get the ball in play, but he knew what to do and ran down to first base as fast as he could, and we were able to scratch a run across."
After Jamestown retook the lead in the eighth, Wolfe retired the Indians 1-2-3 to end it.
Russellville had an offensive explosion in its first two games of the round robin, recording 15 hits in its 15-5 win over Osage and 12 hits in the 11-0 win over Missouri Military Academy (M.M.A.)
Against M.M.A., Seth Kuda and Tyler Voss each were 3-for-4 from the plate, with Kuda recording two RBI. Harrison was 2-for-3 with two RBI and Johnson was 1-for-4 with two RBI.
Harrison and Johnson had a combined no-hitter through four innings, as Minor pitched the final three innings, allowing the only hit in the game in the sixth inning.
On Friday, the three through five hitters in the lineup combined for 7-for-11 at the plate with six RBI. Harrison was 3-for-4 with an RBI, Johnson batted 2-for-3 with two RBI and Zach Voss was 2-for-4 with three RBI.
"We needed this, I mean, it has been a rough couple of weeks," Branson said. "When you're hitting the ball to right side, you're doing a lot of things right at the plate, so that was nice to see."
Russellville scored three runs in the first, six in the second and three in the third and fourth to run away from Osage.
"We juggled our lineup around a little bit," Branson said. "I don't know if what we're doing right now is the right thing, but we have some guys that are swinging the bat really well now."
Russellville (5-11) will travel to Eugene on Thursday at 5 p.m. and Stover on Friday at the same time. They'll host Dixon and Cole Camp on Saturday at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., respectively. This record does not include Monday's away game against New Bloomfield.