Hawks looking for hits

After a nine-game road trip to open the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League season, the Spokane RiverHawks were glad to be back in the 509 area code.

Maybe playing at Avista Stadium would be the wake-up call their bats needed.

But despite numerous opportunities, Spokane failed to answer with a key hit and dropped a 5-2 decision to the Corvallis Knights before 398 on Monday night.

The loss dropped the RiverHawks to 3-7, the mirror image of Corvallis’ West Division-leading record.

Spokane had trouble making contact on the long road trip, averaging more than 10 strikeouts per game, hitting .217 as a team and scoring a little more than four runs per game.

And head coach Barry Matthews feels he knows why.

“We have a lot of young guys on this club who are really making adjustments at the plate,” said Matthews, an assistant at Spokane Falls during the college season. “They’re learning about approaches at the plate, what to look for in certain counts, two-strike approaches, and I think it’s really starting to pay off.”

It did in a sense Monday, as the RiverHawks had six hits, including two doubles, two walks and a hit batter off four Corvallis pitchers. But the hits didn’t come in key times.

Corvallis jumped to a 3-0 lead after three innings against starter and loser Kraig Sitton (0-1) before Spokane answered with a two-out, run-scoring single from second baseman Aaron Headrick in the bottom of the third off winner Ryan Platt (1-0).

The Knights almost got the big hit they needed in the fourth, but Headrick’s diving stop of Ian Bridges’ sharp ground ball ended a bases-loaded, two-out rally.

From there, 6-foot-5 right-handed reliever Aaron Guinn, who struck out five of the first seven Knight hitters he faced, kept Spokane close.

In the seventh, the RiverHawks’ Kyle Krustangel, who came in hitting a team-high .364, led off with a walk.

Eric Renander, the only other Spokane starter hitting better than .300, then sacrificed, reaching second when pitcher Greg Bobnick and first baseman Bridges couldn’t connect on the throw, allowing Krustangel to get all the way to third.

Rob Folsom plated Krustangel with a sacrifice fly to center and shortstop Ernesto Ortiz picked up his second infield single of the night, moving Renander to third with the tying run.

With lead-off hitter Headrick up, Matthews made a key decision.

“I had one of our best hitters in Aaron Headrick up, and he’s also one of our best bunters, and I tried to sneak a safety squeeze there and probably was the wrong decision,” Matthews admitted. “But you’ve got to live with it.”

Actually, reliever Anthony Castillo, who came in to face Ortiz, had decided to go to first when he saw Renander freeze halfway down the third-base line. But no one covered first, so Castillo had to wheel and fire to Doug Cherry, nailing a retreating Renander.

The RiverHawks weren’t done, with clean-up hitter Greg Lagried’s one-out double in the eighth putting the tying run in scoring position again. But Tyson VanWinkle (fly to right) and Krustangel (strike out looking) were unable to bring him home.

“That’s where we want it, 3-4-5, when the chips are down to do something big and we just didn’t get it done,” Matthews said.

Guinn, who pitched two years for Matthews at SFCC and last season at Mesa State College in Colorado, tired in the ninth, giving up an RBI double to John Wallace before Corvallis tacked on a final unearned run on Ortiz’s throwing error.

Despite the losing record, Matthews sees a positive – and room for improvement.

“These guys really back each other up, they really play for each other,” Matthews said. “Now it’s a matter of getting the big hit.”