A strong pitching performance from Cordale Barton and a dominating offensive attack moved the Grove Ridgerunners to their fifth straight win to start the 2013 baseball season, downing Vinita 13-5 in six innings Friday at the Grove Sports Complex.
Barton came on in relief in the top of the first inning with the Ridgerunners down 4-0, going the final five innings without giving up a hit to pick up his first varsity win.
The Hornets got four runs off Grove starter Scottie Spicer, including a two-run single by Vinita starting pitcher Colin McKissick to start the game before Barton came on with one runner on base and two outs in the first. Barton struck out Ethan Gibson looking to end the inning.
“We had a plan to split the game up between Scottie and Cordale,” Bouher said. “Scottie had some great outings for us last summer but today he didn’t have the start he wanted. He didn’t have his best stuff and then they got a couple of hits and things went south. Cordale came in and stabilized everything and went the distance.”
Barton allowed two walks while striking out six. McKissick reached on an error to lead off the third to account for the Hornets’ only other baserunner over the final five innings. Vinita’s only run off Barton came in the fifth when Kevin Jordan led off with a walk, stole second then advanced to third and home on passed balls.
But by that time the Ridgerunners had scored two runs in each of the first four innings to take a big lead. Justin Tesreau drove in two with a single in the first while Kody Stephenson drove in a run in the bottom of the second with a sacrifice fly before Ty Morrow tied the game with an RBI single.
Ty Phillips gave Grove the lead for good in the bottom of the third with a two-run single that made it 6-4. Tesreau would add an RBI triple in the fourth before being driven home by a Jake Spychalski single to make it 8-4.
“We’ve been swinging it very well and scoring a lot of runs,” Bouher said. “We made some hard outs today. But we have a mature team. When you start eight or nine seniors you expect those sorts of things.”
The Ridgerunners have scored 53 runs in their first five games of the season. Friday Grove had hits from eight different players with six players getting at least two hits. Phillips, Tesereau and Morrow each drove in three runs, while Tesereau and Benny Steffenson each had three hits.
Morrow had a two-run double in the five-run sixth that ended the game by run-rule. Phillips and Erick Ryan also had run-scoring singles in the frame.
The Ridgerunners will get back into 5A-3 play on Monday when they travel to Tulsa Washington for a game with the Hornets. The two teams will play in Grove on Tuesday at 4:30.
