Rogers’ Big Inning Leads EV Sweep

The East Valley Knights put it to rival West Valley Saturday, 12-10 and 25-10 in a doubleheader played at WV as Frontier League play started.

In the other league openers, Colville and Clarkston split, Clarkston 6-4 in the first and the Indians 8-7 in the second. Cheney and Pullman were rained out and will play Monday afternoon.

In the Valley battle, which included 43 total hits, the big bopper was EV’s Brock Rogers, who finished the day with seven hits.

In the top of the third inning in the second game, Rogers led off with a solo home run to tie the score at 5. From there, the rest of the Knights joined the hit parade and scored nine runs in the inning.

Before the inning was over, Rogers went to bat again and hit his second homer, a three-run blast.

EV moved out to a 13-5 lead and never slowed down.

EV’s Steve Pipkin, Rich Burland and Bill Tincup joined in the monster hitting attack. Pipkin hit a grand slam in the fifth of game two, while Tincup and Burland had five hits apiece.

While many Frontier eyebrows were raised with the Knights’ performance, first-year coach Kurt Krauth said his senior-dominated has talent.

“I feel real confident in them, and they have a lot of confidence in themselves,” Krauth said. “Last summer in Legion they got beat up a lot, but they fought hard and never quit.

The past couple of seasons, the Knights have had slow starts. EV wants to correct its past mistakes.

“We’ve made a point not to dig ourselves a hole,” Krauth said.

So far so good.

In the first game, the Knights jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the first. WV cut it to 11-10 with the help of an eight-run third, but Pipkin held off the Eagles after relieving starter Brian Lamarche in the sixth. “If we get quality pitching, we can be competitive,” Krauth said.

But no one is making arrangements for the state tournament just yet.

“They were feeling real good because it’s two big wins against a real good club,” Krauth said. “You always feel good about beating a good team, but you better believe West Valley will have something to say in this league before it’s over.” East Valley is 2-0 and West Valley is 0-2.

At Clarkston, the Bantams committed five errors in the first two innings, but despite the miscues held on to win the game. In game two, Colville sharpened its bats. A late Clarkston rally fell short. Both of those teams are 1-1 on the season.