Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Oakdale's baseball comes to an end in Mamou

Oakdale baseball comes to an end in Mamou 
It took five innings for Oakdale’s baseball season to come to an end Monday night as the Warriors lost 10-0 to Mamou.
 The Oakdale coaching staff thought they would have to travel to Springfield for the first game in the playoffs, but Oakdale got a bump in the power points when the final rankings came out sending them instead to Mamou. “We know these guys, we know the coaches,” head coach Brent Mckoy said. “Talking to people in their district and ours and knowing these guys player for player, we think it’s a good match. Whereas going way north somewhere we don’t know anybody, it’s kinda hard to kinda prepare.” 
Hunter Longino got the start on the mound. “Hunter’s our guy,” McKoy said. “We’re figuring with him throwing it gives us a chance to beat pretty much anybody. It gives us a shot. He’s throwing the ball well, and the last few outings he’s been healthy and good.” 
Oakdale entered the playoffs after losing at Rosepine 4-3 and losing at Bunkie 11-2 in the final week of the season. The last game was rained out in Iowa. “We hit the ball decent, coulda hit a little better I thought in the Bunkie game,” said Mckoy. “Our defense has been playing really well the last couple games. We just come up short. We threw four or five guys in that game. Pitching wise we weren’t at our best in that last one, but I think our bats are where we want them to be going into the playoffs.”
The pitching woes continued for Oakdale against Mamou. Longino labored in the first inning walking four batters including the first three in the Demon lineup. The defense behind him cost him two runs as a dropped pop up at shortstop allowed two runs to come across the plate for Mamou. 
It then took three Oakdale pitchers to pitch into and out of the second inning. Longino was pulled from the game after facing the first batter in the inning. Terrence Holmes came in and walked two of the four batters he faced. Nick Doyle then came in to pitch and settled things down, but the damage was done as Mamou plated seven runs in the inning. 
“We just didn’t pitch well tonight,” McKoy said. “Tonight Hunter just didn’t have it, and in relief we brought Terrence in relief, and he didn’t either. It took our third guy to finally settle in, and once that took place it was already nine runs down. So it’s hard to come back from that. And we settled down for three or four innings after that.”
The season may be over now for his Warriors, but McKoy turned upbeat when talking about his team next season. “We got some good young ball players,” he said. “The guy that started tonight, Hunter Longino, is a sophomore. It’s his first playoff start, so that may have had a little to do with it. We had two freshmen in the field tonight starting in their first playoff game, so we got a good young core of the team coming back. And we got pitching coming back too. They got the experience of playing in the playoffs to see what it’s about so hopefully we can build on that.”       

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