Mariners B team doesn't back down in Eureka

by Brandon Hansen & Sports Editor
| May 3, 2012 5:00 PM

EUREKA — The Mission Valley Mariners B team won its second game of the season with a 13-5 victory over the Class A Kalispell Lakers on Saturday, and showed plenty of promise at its two other games at the Eureka Round Robin over the weekend.

“We played really well,” manager Chris Brown said. “The kids were up at 5:30 in the morning on Saturday and we had to take that long road trip up to Eureka.”

The trip didn’t deter the Mariners when they downed the Lakers 13-5. Even though Kalispell jumped out to an early 3-0 lead after the first inning, Mission Valley answered back with two runs of its own and found consistency on offense.

Along with their two runs in the first, the Mariners scored three in the third and then had a six-run rally in the fourth.

“We battled back the whole game and it was good to see the kids not give up after being down early in a game,” Brown said.

Alex Killian finished the game 2-for-4 with a double and 2 RBI, JT Probst went 2-for-3 with two RBI and Nick Crawford was 2-for-3 and also drove in two runs. In all, seven different Mariners players had hits in the game.

Killian also pitched 2 1/3 innings and Chris Drebes pitched 1 1/3 innings. For their next game, Mission Valley faced red hot Kootenai Valley and fared a lot better than the Class A opponents the Rangers had faced previously.

While they lost 8-4, they showed they could run with some of the better Class A Legion teams out there.

“That was probably our best game all the way around,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they win that Northern district and we were right in there with them. They have a lot of returners and they definitely overwhelmed a lot of teams at that tournament.”

After Kootenai Valley jumped out to a 7-0 lead through three innings, the Mariners held the Rangers to just one run for the rest of the game while scoring two in the fourth and two in the sixth.

Brown said that one of their runners getting tagged at home in the first inning and a similar situation later in the game could have led to more Mission Valley runs and the game could have had a different outcome.

At the plate, Ryan Pablo, Killian and Drebes all had doubles while David Cleveland went 2-for-2 at the plate.

“We had a couple extra base hits last weekend too,” Brown said. “The kids swung the bat well and I think both teams – both the A and B teams – ran the bases very well. We ran ourselves into a couple of those extra-base hits.”

On Sunday, the Glacier A Twins handed the Mariners a 13-5 loss in their last game of the round robin. With it being a long weekend of travel and play, Brown said it wasn’t anything to be too worried about.

“It was toward the end of the weekend and the kids were a bit tired, you could see it in the offense a little,” Brown said. “That’s just something you expect to see this early in the season.”

Glacier scored four in the first and spread their runs around after that. Brown felt if the team could have gotten by those earlier hiccups it would have been a much closer game.

Drebes, Jared Young and Cleveland all had two hits in the game. Mission Valley finished the weekend with a 2-3 record on the season with two of those wins coming against the A team’s conference opponents.

“So far I’ve been very happy with our team,” Brown said. “We beat two of the A team’s conference opponents so far, and it’s always good to see our B team do that. I’ve been very impressed with our defense and pitching.”

Brown said that in five games, his team has committed just five errors and added that two players, Cleveland and Drebes, were close to getting the ball out of the park with hits off the wall.

He added that it’s promising to see the extra-base hits from his team, considering the players have been adjusting to the new BBCOR bats for the 2012 season. Both the NCAA and the National Federation of High School Associations have banned composite-barreled aluminum bats, switching to only BBCOR approved bats. Legion also made the switch to the BBCOR bats in 2012.

BBCOR is short for “Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution” and deals with the “trampoline effect” the barrel of the bat has on the ball. Bat manufacturers now have to make the new BBCOR bats, which deaden the effect and make the bats have the same effect as wooden bats. Anybody in attendance at Legion games will instantly recognize that the bats no longer have that signature “ping” sound effect.

“So far our kids have made the adjustment,” Brown said. “I’ve been very, very impressed. I’m pretty sure that every kid on our team has a hit so far this season.”

The B team will host the Kalispell Lakers A team on Sunday in a doubleheader.

MVM B 13, KALI. 5

Mariners - 13

Kalispell - 5

MV - 10 hits.

Mariners batting - Ryan Pablo 0-3, Mike Bournstein 1-3, Alex Killian 2-4, Davin Sorrell 0-1, JT Probst 2-3, Chris Drebes 1-2, Jared Young 1-2, Nick Crawford 2-3, David Cleveland 1-3. 2B - Killian, Drebes. RBIs - Bournstein, Killian 2, Probst 2, Drebes 2, Crawford 2, Cleveland

M Pitching - Alex Killian 2 1/3 IP, Chris Drebes 1 1/3 IP

KV 8, MVM B 4

M - 000 - 202 - 0 - 4

K - 232 - 100 - x - 8

MV - 7 hits, 1 error. KV - 6 hits, 0 errors

Mariners batting - Ryan Pablo 1-4, Jared Young 0-4, Alex Killian 1-4, Chris Drebes 1-2, Ian Rickets 0-3, Jacob Harrod 1-3, David Cleveland 2-2, Niqolas Gillingham 1-2, Aaron Rassmussen 0-2, JT Probst 0-1 . 2B - Pablo, Killian, Drebes, Harrod. RBIs- Harrod 2.

GLACIER 13, MVM B 5

Mariners - 5

Glacier - 13

MV - 8 hits

Mariners batting - Ryan Pablo 0-3, Mike Bourstein 1-3, Alex Kilian 0-2, Chris Drebes 2-2, JT Probst 0-3, Jared Young 2-3, David Cleveland 2-3, Aaron Rassmussen 0-1, Niqolas Gillingham 1-2, Ian Ricketts 0-1, Jacob Herrod 0-1.