By: Joe Blystone
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
publisher@thevillagereporter.com
DELTA (March 27, 2024) – Early spring baseball you can hear the same whiney complaints. It’s too windy…my walk-up song didn’t get played…our uniforms don’t look cool…it’s too cold to play.
On a 36 degree, mostly cloudy and windy day, Evergreen did what you should do if you don’t like the conditions by making the game shorter with a 13-0, five-inning whitewash of Delta.
“It’s early in the year and we struggled in our first time out offensively and we are a better hitting team than what we showed,” Viking coach Mark Cymbolin said after his team rebounded from a first game loss.
“As the season goes on, we will get better, I know we still don’t have it all the way yet but today definitely was a step in the right direction with our approaches getting better and using the whole field.”
Evergreen started fast when Colton Robertson walked, stole second and third, then scored on a Layne Vance line drive single to right off Panther starter Landon Griesinger.
The Vikings added two more after a walk, an error, and Bryce Bolger’s rope down the left field line for a run scoring single to make it 3-0.
Cory Kanneman’s two-out RBI single tacked on a run in the second before the Vikes blew the game open in the third.
Three walks around an out jacked the bases and John Herdman’s two-strike bouncer through the left side plated two more runs.
Robertson’s opposite field hit reloaded the bases and Vance cleared them with a booming triple up the left-center gap to open the gap to 9-0.
Cory Kanneman’s second run producing hit made it 10-0 before the Panthers got out of the inning.
On the other side, Vance limited the Panthers to a single and issued just one walk with a pair of strikeouts in the first three innings.
“The biggest thing we preach is throwing strikes and he did that today,” Cymbolin said of Vance’s performance.
“He got ahead of hitters and made them put it in play. We played pretty good defense behind him which is what we will have to hang our hat on this year.”
Troy Manz gave up a pair of hits in the fourth to Alex Brown and Joel Arroyo-Sierra, but escaped more trouble when Sean Rafferty gunned down Brown trying to steal, and Arroyo-Sierra was erased trying to advance after a Viking error.
Brady Kanneman’s second hit of the day added one Evergreen run in the fifth with an error and Bolger’s sac fly bringing in two more.
Robertson worked through a walk with a pair of strikeouts closing out the fifth. The Vikings had 10 hits on the day with Vance, Bolger and both Kanneman’s each getting two.
EVERGREEN 316 03 – 13 10 2
DELTA 000 00 – 0 3 1
Records: Evergreen 1-1, Delta 1-1
WINNING PITCHER: Vance (3 innings, 1 hit, 0 runs, 2 strikeouts, 1 walk) Other: Manz
LOSING PITCHER: Greisinger (2.1 innings, 7 hits, 10 runs, 8 earned, 1 strikeout, 5 walks) Other: Brown, Lohnman
LEADING HITTERS: (Evergreen) Vance – triple, single, 4 RBIs; C. Kanneman – 2 singles, 3 RBIs; B. Kanneman – 2 singles; Herdman – 2 singles, 2 RBIs; Bolger – 2 singles; (Delta) – 3 singles