Portland rockets 2 grand lake mariners 2  10 innings june 5, 2013
 
Good morning baseball fans, it’s a beautiful day in Portland.  The Portland rockets
Played hard ball, 10 innings worth at Montgomery field in Celina wed. nite, vs. the 
Grand lake mariners.  A tie, 2-2 called after extra innings due to league concerns.  The mariners start league play tonite and felt they needed to conserve pitchers. This another game played on asto turf, home of the Celina bulldogs coached by former rocket drew braun of the 90’s era. Mondays game at wright state also on turf,,,, what was that quip by yogi berra ---if cows wont eat it , I don’t want to play on it.
Portland scored 2 runs in the second –consecutive singles by geoff bowers (lima) and chris miller(Topeka) a sac bunt by  Dalton tinsley ( kokomo),  ground out rbi by logan hug (fishers) and a rbi single by ben smith (maria stein) and that’s all she wrote.
The rocket offense mustered by 9 base runners in all, we outhit our foes 6-5.  ben smith had 3 of the 6 hits.  The rockets had 3 baserunners thrown out on the basepaths, including a potential go ahead run pegged down at third with 1 out in the 10th.  Rocket batters struck out 11 times.
The big news taken from this 2 hr 30 min effort, was the biggest fellow on the field,,,,and we are glad he is on our team,,,,big dan bollenbacher from berne
Dan was stellar in his mound duty, 4 innings of nohit ball, 1 walk 4 Ks giving up one unearned run.   Dan finding his stride after a rocky outing in Richmond mixing pitches has been the rocket workhorse for the last 4 years.  He spent the last spring coaching the south adams starfires.
5 rocket pitchers limited the mariners to 5 hits total and just 8 baserunners. 
Bollenbacher, eathan daggett (Huntington) travis gray (markle) junior santos (texas) and Dylan Brammer (s. bend) all were effective. 12 ks
The home team tied the game in the 6th in a controversial manner, after travis gray gave up an infield single, the runner was thrown out  stealing by c chris miller , but after a confab the Celina manager managed to get the call overturned---next man drilled a double to tie the score,,,,,,,considering we had 3 guys thrown out on the basepaths---seemed like a little home cooking,  just saying,,,,,
In our trip to Celina, saw longtime general manager of the mariners and friend wayne miller, also saw bill miller, Kathy miller and gary miller of the pitstop. Earlier saw tim miller from tjs. And I remember once todd miller said, one more miller and we  got  a six pack.
Rockets travel to ft wayne Carrington field tonite to take on the top club in the region 
Ft. wayne jackers former rocket garrett wiejak the pitcher,  we counter with Michael caley 
Game time 7 pm all natural turf
Reminder 1st home game action sat 1 pm vs keith sheperd’s team from Wabash.
Thanks Kenny schwieterman for your help yesterday .
Now I have go meet a work crew from the jay county corrections department.   Mike simons and his work crew of inmates will assist me on some grounds crew duties on runkle\miller field.
Go rockets!!