PSCHIER, PUGH SPARK GREENWOOD PAST OZARK

Down 4-2 in the bottom of the fifth inning, the Greenwood Bulldogs were in pretty unfamiliar territory Saturday afternoon. But these Bulldogs are anything but a one-man show. For Greenwood, it’s next man up. Seniors Cody Smith and Dylan Montgomery ripped back-to-back two-out RBI doubles to tie the game, and seldom used Cameron Pugh’s first hit of the season snapped the tie an inning later as Greenwood rallied to beat Ozark, 7-4, for its 10th straight victory at Bulldog Field. Right-hander Blake Pschier pitched four effective innings for his third victory in four decisions. “This was our fifth game this week, and we knew going to Farmington last night and playing late, and beating a good Farmington team, sometimes we have find out how tough we are the following day,” Holloway said. “Coming out and playing and playing a game at 1 o’clock isn’t ordinary for us, and we don’t play many Saturday games, so you have to find guys that want to pitch and get after it. I thought Blake cam in and did a good job for us.” Pschier replaced Braiden Partin with two on and nobody in the third inning. And things immediately went from bad to worse. Bryant Burns reached on a fielder’s choice to load the bases, and Dakota Cowens followed with a walk to force home the tying run. One out later, Josh Williams blooped a Texas Leaguer to center field to score Dougan Philips, and Ozark’s Brayden Smith was hit by a pitch to force home another run. But Pschier retired the next two hitters and allowed just two base runners over the next three innings before giving way to Ryan Daggs. Daggs pitched a scoreless seventh for his first save of the year. Ozark’s Keaton Moon (4-1) gave up three runs and five hits in 2/3 innings of an inning. “Going into the year, we knew they (Greenwood) had all these talented kids like the (Connor) Noland kid, the (Peyton) Holt kid and (Cooper) Van Kooten,” Ozark coach Brett Stone said. “We knew we were going to were going to be young and we wanted to see if we could come up here and compete with them, and I feel like we did a good job of competing.” Van Kooten started Greenwood’s sixth inning rally with an innocent-looking bloop single that fell just inside the line down the left field line. Pugh, who had but five official at-bats prior to the sixth, followed with his first hit of the season, a roller just to the right of Ozark shortstop Eddie Graham. Noland, who had three hits to raise his batting average to .352, padding his RBI total to 21, shot a single to center to make it 6-4. He later scored on a passed ball. Greenwood (18-6) took a 1-0 lead in the first on Holt’s RBI grounder. Ozark (15-5) tied the game in the second when Williams raced home on a wild pitch. Jake Smith’s RBI single put the Bulldogs ahead 2-1 after two.

PSCHIER, PUGH SPARK GREENWOOD PAST OZARK

Photo Credit: Jamie Mitchell