Falcons Bite Pippins
- Updated: June 22, 2018
The Kelowna Falcons opened their six-game home stand with a solid five innings of work from starter James Brooks and a 7-1 victory over the Yakima Valley Pippins on Friday night at Elks Stadium.
Brooks threw a solid five innings of work while allowing just three hits and striking out five to earn his first win of the season. The bullpen allowed just a run over four innings between Reece Weinberg, Zac Bygum and Bradley Stookey to shut the door on the Falcons 7th win of the season.
Matt Voelzke got the scoring going in the 2nd inning with an RBI double down the right field line before Ryan Fischer drove home a pair with a two-run double into right field for a 3-0 lead. Tylor Nixon capped off the four-run inning with an RBI groundout to stake the Falcons to a 4-0 lead after two innings of play.
Brooks continued his strong outing through to the 5th inning before being relieved by Weinberg in the 6th inning after allowing just three hits over his five innings pitched. The Pippins scored a run in the 6th to cut the deficit to 4-1 before the Falcons added on three runs in the 7th inning while not recording a hit.
Falcons Head Coach Bryan Donohue was happy with what he saw from his starter, “I thought we did a great job of nipping any chances they had in the bud and that started with Brooks,” said Donohue, “We asked James to come out on short rest and he was really sharp for us.”
Three walks, a hit by pitch and an RBI groundout helped the Falcons take a 7-1 lead off of reliever Cole Jones with Trent Tinglestad, Ryan Fish and Nixon collecting RBI’s in the inning before Bradley Stookey took over for a pair of innings to close out the game and help the Falcons to their seventh victory of the season. James Brooks picked up his first win of the season while Mason Wells was saddled with his first loss for the Pippins.
“With the way that Brooks was pitching, those kinds of runs that Nixon, Fish and Tinglestad were able to produce felt like huge runs because he was pitching so well,” commented Donohue, “One thing I’ve challenged this group to do is to, worst case scenario, put the ball in the middle of the infield and these guys work hard on that and it paid off tonight cause those were a couple of big runs Nixon was able to bring in for us.”
The Falcons (7-9) continue on their three-game series against the Pippins (7-8) and look for the series win on Saturday night with first pitch scheduled for 6:35 PM at Elks Stadium. Tickets can be purchased on the Falcons website or at the door ahead of the ballgame.
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