Portland Rockets 7 Huntington Foresters 6  June 16, 2011

Good morning baseball fans, it’s a beautiful day in Portland.  The Portland rockets defeated the Huntington foresters thrus. Eve at forest glen park 7-6.  the rocket train keeps rolling---6 wins in the last 7 games.  But it wasn’t a walk in the glen park---

Bottom of the 9^th with the fog rolling in,  Trevor kill coaxed a ground ball to second baseman zach tumulty with the tying run at second to seal the deal.  Kill’s second save in 2 games.

This contest, 2hr and 39 min was a back and forth, see saw affair.  Forestes up 2 in the first ,rockets up 2 in the second – they touched up starter eathan daggett , he too from Huntington just off coach degitz high school sectional championship team, 5 runs in 3 inn and the score is tied 5-5 in the 5^th .   with one out in the 6^th  catcher chris miller, Winchester, singled –tough at bat with 2 strikes, chris tillery breaks his bat but places it to right for  another hit, brady roundtree  and ben smith prove to be clutch performers, each with a solid run producing hit. 

Dan bollenbacker pitched the middle 3 inn and picked up the win, dan nursing a blister on his right hand, struck out 6 allowing only 1 hit.  Brad benbow went the next 2 and shut em down. Trevor kill, 4^th rocket pitcher the save in the 9^th.

20 rockets in the dugout, more batting practice with coach Kevin mccowan is paying off.

Rocket offense 12 hits on the game, we cut down our whiff ratio---only 4  Ks.

Brady roundtree the leader with 3 hits from the lead off spot in heath Williams absence,,2 hits each by geoff bowers and Thomas mccowan.  Chris tillery scored 2 runs.

Rockets win now moves the season record to 7-4

Rockets will host the Warsaw Indians sat at runkle-miller field at 2pm  starters eric van matre, and craig martin.  The rockets will then travel to Mishawaka sun to marian high school vs. the south bend sultans, tyler Reynolds and tyler Holloway the starters.

Side note:  Warsaw always loves to come to Portland to stay the night then play Decatur on their return trip Sunday.  Main reason:  a visit to rocket sponsor the greasy pickle, in fact they often make both the pickle and buffalo wings and rings.

Today I have the good fortune to pay a visit to Maggie runkle—her husband was the pioneer who founded the rockets in 1959. Maggie, sharp and very neat lady is 97 and she is quite willing to share with me some of her scrap books and artifacts of early rockets days.  Very timely as I will speak at the jay county historical society museum tues nite .

By the way rocket nation is everywhere---our opponents last nite had 5 former rockets on their team.  coach Andrew Drummond played with the rockets in 2007 in the aabc regional in Evansville .  also tribolet, mills, palmer, and brannock were with the rockets in the past couple seasons.

Reminder 2pm start vs. Warsaw Indians

Rockets 5-1 in heartland league standings, Indians 4-3

Check league info on heartland amateur baseball league on the web.