The Price Is “Wright”
- Updated: June 19, 2018
The Kelowna Falcons earned a series win for the first time this season with a 9-6 victory over the Wenatchee AppleSox on Monday night at Paul Thomas Senior Field for their first set of back-to-back wins on the year.
The AppleSox were first to hit the board in the bottom half of the 1st inning as an RBI single from John Sage to get ahead by a 1-0 score before Connor McCord drove him in with an RBI single to give Wenatchee a 2-0 advantage out of the opening inning of play off of starter James Brooks.
Sage added another RBI with a sacrifice fly in the 3rd inning to push their lead to 3-0 before the Falcons were able to get on the board and rattle off nine unanswered runs, beginning with three in the 3rd inning to get the game tied.
Thomas Rudinsky led off the 4th inning with a bunt single before Steffen Torgersen moved him to 3rd base and put runners on the corners for Taylor Wright. A wild pitch brought Rudinsky home before an RBI single from Wright, one of his three hits in the game, saw Torgersen come into score and get the game to 3-2. Wright scored as Josh Figueroa grounded into a double play and tied the game at 3-3.
The 6th inning is when the Falcons got ahead for the first time in the game, after Wright just narrowly missed a home run to right field before singling to lead off the inning and was brought home on an error from the shortstop Mason Marenco to put the Falcons ahead by a 4-3 score. Another error by Marenco brought home another run and pushed the Falcons advantage to 5-3 after five innings of play and both bullpens entered the game.
Wright got another crack in the 6th inning and kept the ball fair, hammering out his first home run of the season over the right field fence for his third hit of the night and gave Kelowna a 6-3 lead in the 7th inning, a sign which Head Coach Bryan Donohue likes to see, “I knew when I saw the foul ball go over the wall in the 6th inning that something had clicked in his swing,” said the Falcons bench boss, “He had some really big knocks for us tonight and it was awesome to see.”
Davis Todosichuk led off the 8th inning by being hit by a pitch which led a long inning of Falcons offence as he scored on an error at 3rd base after an Austen Butler double got him there and pushed the Falcons lead to 7-3. Butler came around to plate on a passed ball before the Falcons loaded the bases and brought home a run on a balk from reliever Nick Seamons to cash Matt Voelzke and push the Falcons advantage to 9-3.
The AppleSox applied some pressure in the 9th inning with a bases-clearing three-run double off the bat of Connor McCord but it was too little, too late for the Wenatchee offence as the Falcons took the rubber match of the series and earned their first back-to-back victories of the season with a 9-6 win in the series finale against the AppleSox.
The bullpen came up in spades for the Falcons and the overall effort was one in which their head coach was very happy with, “We had really competitive team at-bats and I was really proud of our guys for finding a way to scratch and claw and buying into having a good two strike approach,” said Donohue, “Another thing I was proud of was our bullpen being ready to pitch whenever called upon and came through with a great effort tonight and we did a good job in putting this team away tonight for a series win.”
James Brooks started the game for Kelowna and pitched 4.1 innings while surrendering three runs before the bullpen came in and did an excellent job to lock things down. Dru Fitz picked up the victory for the Falcons and Cal Hehnke picked up the three-pitch save while Hunter Boyd started for the AppleSox and Steen Fredrickson was saddled with the loss.
The Falcons continue their six-game road trip with a trip to Yakima Valley to take on the Pippins beginning on Tuesday night with all games in the series scheduled for 6:35 PM. The two teams then make a trip up to Kelowna and Elks Stadium for three games starting on Friday. All games can be heard on the Falcons Broadcast Network HERE with the Voice of the Falcons, Trevor Miller.
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