ALBANY – Linn-Benton came up short in both games of their March 1 doubleheader against Umpqua, falling 5-1 in game one and 6-4 in game two.
UCC took a 1-0 lead in the first inning of the first game but the Roadrunners answered a couple frames later.
Following the initial run, Roadrunners starter Emmett Stacher threw 4 ⅓ innings of scoreless ball before freshman Evan Lehnert stepped in for his first appearance of the season in the fifth.
Lehnert made it through the fifth just fine but didn’t fare well in the sixth. A double, RBI single, RBI double, hits batsman and finally another RBI double all in sequence made it a four-run sixth for the Riverhawks before Lehnert finally pitched out of it.
Things were far from being all on Lehnert, however, as LB finished the game reaching base just five times as a team in the contest.
Kellen Segel was the Roadrunner to pick up the lone RBI in the fourth, rocketing a triple to left-center that scored Chanz Flores.
Game two saw much more stern competition.
Down two runs in the bottom of the seventh, things got interesting when Boston Caron and Jackson Fera worked a pair of one-out walks. However, a double play squeezed out all hopes of another walk-off win and ended the game.
It was freshman Cooper Yudishthu’s turn in the rotation in this one; he put up another solid outing. Yudishthu finished with five innings pitched, giving up just three hits and one earned run. Although two runs did score under his watch in the fifth, they were due to an error.
Errors were perhaps the biggest reason the Beaks found themselves in a do-or-die situation in the bottom of the last inning. LB committed a whopping six errors in the game, three of which lead directly to Umpqua runs.
The Beaks finished the game 5-23 at the dish and worked 7 walks.
In totality, Linn-Benton had something of an off day. Baseball is an unfair game, and if you make a collection of little mistakes, the game often finds a way to punish you for it.
Nevertheless, the team sits at 10-2 (2-2 in the NWAC South) and looks ready to turn the page into the first full month of the season.
The Roadrunners next action will be on Thursday in a home doubleheader against Clackamas. First pitch in game one is set for 11 a.m., while the second game is slated to start around 2 p.m.
