RICHMOND RIVERRATS 3 PORTLAND ROCKETS 2 10 INNINGS

AT RICHMOND JOHN CATE FIELD,  JUNE 1, 2011

Good morning baseball fans, it’s a beautiful day in Portland. Bottom of the ninth, Portland leads Richmond 2-1, 2 out, nobody on base and but one pitch away from winning back to back games vs. the riverrats.  Lefthander craig martin of taylor u., in his third inning of relief, found fate unkind.  A seemingly harmless walk, a single to right and ben smiths throw to third got by Thomas mccowan, and in blink of an eye, the score tied.  2 – 2 in the tenth, heath Williams singles, advances to second, but becomes the 11^th  man left on base,  rocket tyler Reynolds who pitched well last nite, takes the tough loss after a single, stolen base-error, and with the infield in , a ground ball well played by Williams at second, throw just off the mark at the plate, Richmond wins 3-2 in ten innings.

The rockets had 5 pitchers hold off the home team thru 9—ball state lefthander devin wilburn drew much  praise from the opposing coaching staff, he went 4 innings and gave up one run on 5 hits, struck out 5,   mike werling, brad benbow (delta) each 1 shutout inning, craig martin went the last 3 before Reynolds in the 10^th.  Had the game ended on the 9^th inning ground ball single to right, we would have finished in 2 hr 22 min.  not to be---

Rockets out hit em again wed nite, 9-8  captain heath Williams, the straw that stirs the drink, finding his all-american form, led all players with 4 hits but strangly, never scored, in fact 3 times runners from 3^rd with less than 2 outs were left stranded.  Too many strike outs, 14, ouch. 

Brady roundtree ss of Anderson, many considered the best player on the field in the 2 game set, just missed a home run in the 6^th, ended up with 3 hits.  Richmond is in the prospects league, play chiloquothe today, 43 players from their league have been drafted into the pro ranks.  Players from st. xaiver, st. boneventure, heck I know where st. Anthony is,, we like those guys, chad wendel, chico, and richy vogel.anyway , the rivverats are tough, and they whopped us good last year, but they quickly see that Portland has a much improved team. 

Rockets continue on the road to Celina sat and sun vs. the grand lake mariners,,,another tough foe, this one from the great lakes conference.  Our league the heartland league,  division teams include Portland, Decatur dirty birds, Warsaw Indians, and van wert twisters.    Lets have rocket rooters out at Westfield park on fairground round rooting the boys on.  Coach john cate, hall of fame inductee, high school, college, we all have heard of the roosters, his pro team in Richmond,  we talked at length, the ball field is named in his honor and deservedly so.. former rockets to play with the roosters, doug Bolton , john pettibone, and pete byrum.

Sat rockets play at 2 pm Celina, dan bollenbacher and craig martin starters Sunday devin wilburn the 1pm starter,  see ya in Celina roll on rockettrain